The National Park Service is looking to stimulate summer vacations at national parks. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced last week that entrance fees at 147 national parks and monuments—including the Grand Canyon and Yosemite—will be waived on three weekends this summer. The weekends are June 20-21, July 18-19 and Aug. 15-16.

Out of work since December, Kathleen Hewes quickly realized a 14-year family tradition at the Delaware shore would have to end in 2009. “We decided in January we couldn’t afford it,“ Hewes said of her now one-income household. fina31Then Hewes heard back from rental agent Sue Cooper: The owner of the beach property would welcome the Hewes back to Bethany Beach—for free. The family has the last week in July booked at a three-bedroom town house.

When you cross the border into Maryland on Route 15, a sign welcomes you to the state and informs you that a guy by the name of Gov. Martin O’Malley runs the place. It seems like a bit of a waste, doesn’t it? The people who live in Maryland already know; if they don’t know, then they don’t care; and the people who don’t live in Maryland probably don’t care, either.

It was cold outside. Even the office was chilly. We needed a vacation. The bosses, however, weren’t going to let us go far, so we had to settle for the next best thing: an hour away from the office pretending we were in some far-flung tropical locale. Kuba Kuba restaurante y bodega in the Fan District played along with our fantasies.