Aquariums are some of my favorite places to visit as I travel around the country. There's sometime about coming face-to-face with exotic ocean creatures that thrills me in a way that museums and historic sites simply can't.

At Newport Aquarium, part of Newport on the Levee in Northern Kentucky, I got an up-close glimpse at hundreds of creatures, both domestic and exotic. This million-gallon aquarium features nine main exhibits, which give visitors opportunities to see marine animals from both local freshwwater and faraway oceans. The most exciting section of the aquarium is the "Surrounded by Sharks" tank, a wrap-around exhibit that has visitors walking through clear acryilic tunnels in a ginat tank as eight or nine species of sharks swim above and around their heads. It's the closest you'll ever come to deep-sea immersion without a wetsuit, and the closest you'd ever want to be to these critters without a shark cage.

I also enjoyed exhibits that showcased some of the aquarium's less ferocious residents. My co-worker Stacey and I stood mesmerized at the "Kingdom of the Penguins" exhibit, watching these lumbering birds plop off of the rocks and glide through the water with effortless ease and impressive speed. In the aquarium's aviary, we got up close to parrots and other colorful, exotic birds that pearched in low tree branches just above our heads. Some other visitors stopped to pose for pictures with the birds, who stood gently on their outstretched fingers.

My favorite display, though, was the jellyfish. These simple, translucent creatures simply amaze me — you can see right through their bodies, watching their heads undulate and their long, whispy tentatcles flutter as they ply their way through the water. The dark environment and neon lights behind the tanks give the jellies an otherworldly glow. And when you think about it, a visit to the aquarium is as close to another world as most of us will ever dare to venture.

Up close with exotic birds.

A facinating world of darkness and neon light in the jellyfish exhibit.

I visited the Creation Museum last week as part of a daylong editorial research trip in Northern Kentucky. There's a lot to think about in a museum that deals with such weighty subject matter as the origins of human existence and the search for absolute truth; at the end of the visit, though, two main thoughts filled my mind.

First, I was very pleasantly surprised by the scope and quality of this museum. Some museums that are closely tied to faith are also seen as haphazard or amateur, but the display design and educational content in this museum stand up to other major natural history museums in the U.S. And the museum planners didn't skimp on their vision — this $27 million facility features a planetarium, a theater, two cafes and a number of impressive dioramas and animatronic exhibits. Throughout the exhibits, the museum makes a clear, cogent case for creationism, dealing with questions about evolution, the fossil record, Noah's flood and dinosaurs, with displays that will please both casual visitors and those seeking scientific answers. The idea perpetuated by some critics that this museum is but a naive, superstitious Christian attraction is simply untrue.

The quality of the museum and its exhibits led to my second main thought as I left: If this facility were dinky, cheap, unscientific or poorly put together, it would be very easy to write it off and ignore the message of its content. But because the exhibits are thorough, compelling and well-presented, they engender a real dialogue about the origins of our universe. The Creation Museum has many enthusiastic fans — and also plenty of outspoken critics — but the fact that it is a controversial attraction doesn't diminish the importantece of its subject matter. If nothing else, the greatest success of this place may be that it forces visitors to deal with very important questions about human life, God and the search for eternal meaning. A visit to this museum makes honest thinkers seriously consider what they believe, and why they believe it.

A room-sized exhbit depicts the construction of Noah's ark.

This exhibit presents numerous natural phenomenon that seem to defy evolutionary theory.

The museum takes a firm (and controversial) stand about the source of truth and morality in the world.

In East Troy, a preserved electic railroad gives visitors a passage into some of the area's hidden treasures.

A short drive from Lake Geneva, East Troy is a small southeast Wisconsin town that has a 100-year railroad history. In 1907, the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company brought the first electric railway through town, connecting the area to Milwaukee for freight and passenger shipping. Though rail is no longer the primary means of transportation, and much of the electric railroad in the area no longer exists, a stretch of electified rail extending from East Troy makes for great group excursions.

We began with a visit to the depot, which is now a museum detailing the history of the electric railroad. After a short introduction, our hosts helped us board a 1927 trolley car, restored to its original look and outfitted with vintage advertising. The car started on the ten mile journey, and our hosts told us more about their family history on the railroad as we passed through forests, corn fields and small villages along the way.

We stepped off at The Elegant Farmer, an orchard and bakery operation that sits right on the train tracks. This group of farmers has created an outlet store that sells area favorites such as Door County cherry products, cider-cured ham and traditional Wisconsin cheese curds. The Elegant Farmer's most famous product, though, is an apple pie baked in a brown paper bag. Owner Keith Schimdit walked my group through the store, and up to the production facility, where we saw workers kneading pie dough, coating carmel apples and preparing other fall products.

We had a great lunch at the Elegant Farmer, tasting a number of their products. The cider-cured ham was delicious, along with the bottle of fresh apple cider that came with lunch. A generous portion of fresh apple pie made the perfect end to a morning spent exploring these travel treasures of southeast Wisconsin.

Inside the historic electric train car

The Elegant Farmer's famous apple pie in a bag

A batch of freshly dipped carmel apples

After spending a day on Wisconsin's Geneva Lake (in the town of Lake Genvea), it's easy to understand what made this area such a popular getaway for wealthy Chicagoans of the 19th century. With crystal clear water and beautiful foliage on 20 miles of shoreline, this lake is one of the natural treasures of the Midwest.

Throughout the late 19th and eary 20th centuries, wealthy residents of Chicago bought land along the lake and built "summer cottages" of varying sizes. The most modest are the size of typical American homes; the most oppulent are extraordinary mansions that showcase brilliant architecture and uncommon wealth. Unlike most houses, these homes don't face the road, which can be a quarter mile or more away. Instead, they face out onto the water.

Today, private owners still use most of these mansions as their summer homes. Many of them take advantage of the mail boat service that began in 1916. Each morning in the summer, a private boat contracted by the Postal Service carries mail to the houses along the lakefront. The large boats pull up to each pier along the way, slowing down just enough for young "mail jumpers" to leap onto the dock, deliver the mail, retrieve outgoing pieces, and jump back onto the boat, clinging to its exterior railing. Since the boat never stops moving (for fear of colliding with the pier), the mail run is an impressive display of bravery and athleticism on the part of its delivery crew.

The mail boat has become such a beloved tradition in the area that it is among the most popular Lake Geneva activities for visitors. Groups can come aboard the mail boat for morning runs, where they'll get an up-close view of the impressive dock jumping, as well as great narration about the history of some of the magnificent homes that they pass along the way.

In October, official mail boat delivery has ended for the season, but the sightseeing cruises continue. The jumpers did a few demonstration deliviers so that the group of journalists I was traveling with could see how it worked. The bursts of excitement perfectly punctuated a day spent reveling in clear skies, sunshine and the splashes of autumn color in the trees around Geneva Lake.

A modest lakefront mansion

Jumping onto pier to deliver the mail

Return jump onto the side of the mail boat

Standing near the top of a 582-foot mountain carving, I enjoyed a view that few people ever get.

Most travelers to the Black Hills of South Dakota make time to visit Mount Rushmore, the famous mountain carving depicting the faces of four American presidents. Not far away, though, another mountain carving project is underway — at Crazy Horse memorial, a dedicated family has been working on a giant sculpture of Lakota Sioux chief Crazy Horse since 1947. As a journalist, I got a special trip to the top of the mountain, where I came face to face with the large granite head of Crazy Horse, and walked out along his arm to a breathtaking view of a Black Hills valley below.

Korczak Ziolkowski began carving this mountain more than 60 years ago, at the inviation of Lakota tribal elders, in order to memorialize the Native American traditions of the area. Since then, Korczak married his wife Ruth, had a gaggle of children, and passed away. Ruth and most of the children continue the slow work of mountain carving, now using controlled dynamite blasts to slowly chip away at the mountain. Today, Crazy Horse's face is finished, and his hand and oustretched arm are beginning to take shape. Someday, when the entire sculpture is finished, the mountain will depict the cheif from the waist up, mounted on horseback, with his hand pointing to the land "where my dead lie buried."

The memorial is a labor of love for the Ziolkowski family, who work on donations and have never taken a dollar of government funding. Though there's no telling how long it will take to finish the sculpture (the pace of the work depends soley on funding), the fact that the project has continued for so long is tribute in itself, both to the legacy of the Native Americans in South Dakota and to the family's embrace of their patriarch's passionate project.

Though the actual sculpture is a work in progress, there is still plenty for groups to do at the visitor center, which sits about a mile away from the mountain. An introductory video gives an overview of the project, and museums and galleries on the premises showcase some of the best Native American arts and crafts from around the area.

Pay a visit to the Crazy Horse Memorial, and you can't help but to be moved by the honor of the Lakota people and the determination of the Ziolkowski family... even if you don't get a special opportunity to stand on the mountain itself.

The Crazy Horse Memorial slowly takes shape about a mile away from the visitors center.

A small model of Korczak's vision at the visitors center shows what the mountain scultupre will look like when finsihed.

Posing for picture at the end of the outstretched arm.

I once heard someone describe Rapid City, SD as "the place where the mountains meet the prairie." There's more to this place than the intersection of the Black Hills and the Great Plains, though — I'm finding that this region is also squarely in the middle of pioneer and Native American culture.

One of the best places to discover Native American heritage in Rapid City is Prairie Edge Trading Company and Galleries. Located in a historic building in the heart of downtown, this company preserves the tradition of the Indian trading post, while also presenting breathtaking fine art that communicates the Native American spirit.

When I first entered, the establishment seemed like a simple western-themed gift shop. But after exploring for a few minutes, I discovered the trading post area, where artists and others can still buy traditional materials such as buffalo hides, deer antlers, feathers and glass beads. Many area artisans come here to get their supplies for their fine art and tradition Indian crafts, many of which can be seen in the store's galleries.

Around the corner from the gift shop area, a large room holds hundreds of pieces of traditional Indian art, much of which featured intricate bead patterns and quillwork. Items range from dream catchers to spirit shirts, decorated bison skulls and woodcarvings. All of the artwork in the store is hand-made, much of it by artists who use traditional materials and techniques.

On a mezzanine overlooking this room, Prairie Edge displays what they bill as the world's largest collection of glass trading beads. Hundreds of jars of beads line the shelves of this exhibit, organized by color and glimmering like a glass rainbow beneath the display lights.

For me, the highlihgt of Praire's Edge was the fine art gallery on the top floor. This area features incredible museum-quality artwork depicting Native American themes and other images of the mountain Northwest. I was fascinated by a large, three-dimensional dioramama made entirely of sculpted paper; I also fell in love with ledger art, a style of painting taken up by tribesmen who used old business ledgers as a canvas once buffalo hides became scarce. The bold and colorful images seemed to leap off the page, contrasting against the straight lines and careful script of the ledgers. Like the rest of Prairie Edge and much of South Dakota, the artwork embodied the intermingling of white culture and Native American heritage.

Hand-made buffalo robe art featuring Native American materials and patterns.

Some of the thousands of glass trading beads on display at Prairie Edge.

An array of specialty beads prized by Indian artists.

In my eight years of professional travel I've been compiling a list of places that every American should visit. The list is full of big-name destinations: The Grand Canyon, Washington D.C. and New York City come to mind. Today, I added another must-see spot: Kenai Fjords National Park.

We arrived this morning in Seward, a small town at the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula, which is the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park. Though there are numerous jaw-dropping national parks in Alaska, Kenai Fjords is unique in numerous aspect, including the fact that it is the only park visited almost exclusively by boat. So our group boarded the Kenai Explorer for a six-hour sightseeing cruise that would take us alongside the fjords for incomparable view of scenery and wildlife.

A fjord is a geological formation that has been carved by a glacier, and the Kenai Fjords are massive stone monoliths and islands that sit on the edge of the Gulf of Alaska. Behind the large stone formations sits the Harding Ice Field, an expansive range of snow-capped mountains where a number of active glaciers continue to move down hill toward the sea. These two elements create a dreamy duality of scenery: Cruising along the coast, I was taken aback by the way that the tree-topped rock formations in the foreground contrasted with the snow-capped mountains climbing behind them in the background. This place where the mountains meet the sea is as beautiful as any other place I've seen on earth.

And the attraction goes beyond landscape snapshots. Our boat's captain and crew helped us to spot humpback whales and Steller sea lions in the waters and rocks of the fjords, as well as puffins and other sea birds that make their home in the area. And the highlight of the cruise was a visit to Holgate Glacier, a 400-foot high colossus of snow and ice that moves at four feet per day into the sea. Standing outside on the deck to see the glacier, we could feel it cooling the air around us. Large chunks of ice that have calved off the glacier float in the water, and our boat crew fished a few pieces up on to deck for us to see and touch. It is the cleanest, coldest and most dense ice that you will likely ever see.

It's hard to described how moving this experience was. The Kenai Fjords are so grand, so pristine and so transcendent. There are many great reasons to visit Alaska; after a day soaking in their majesty, though, I am convinced that the Kenai Fjords are the only reason you really need.

Marveling at the scenery from the bow of the Kenai Explorer

The Chiswell Islands, evidence of the area's glacial past, and the distant Harding Ice Field

Approaching Holgate Glacier

Small chunks of ice that calved off the glacier are crystal-clear.

Thanks to Cruises and Tours Worldwide for hosting us on this trip. Visit their website at www.cruises-toursworldwide.com.

Glaciers have made quite a mark on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, carving out many of the mountain passes and rocky formations that make this area so scenic. But these behemoths of ice aren't just a thing of the past; dozens of glaciers linger in the mountinas around here, and their melting run-off trickles down into the Kenai Lake and Kenai River.

Today, I took a float trip down the Kenai River, along with Cruises and Tours Worldwide and their visiting group from First State Community Bank in Missouri. It was an adventure from the beginning. Arriving at Alaska Wilderness Adventures, we enjoyed a delicious salmon bake along the river, and then went through the commical proccess of outfitting around 50 people in river wear: rubber boots, waterproff overalls and rain slikers. From there, we broke up into groups of eight and loaded into large rubber rafts for a leisurely float down the river.

Though it's been cloudy and rainy here for a few days, the sun and blue skies broke through during our afternoon float trip, treating us to wonderful views of the electric blue water color that is the signature of glacial run-off. Our river guide Gus explained that this color comes from fine particles of silt that the glacier picks up as it slowly scrapes alongside a mountain. Gus also spent much of the 90-minute trip pointing out some of the various birds and small animals that live along the river, and telling us about the salmon run that will happen here nextt week. We passed a few fly fishermen along the way, but Gus said that next week, when tens of thousands of salmon return to these waters to spawn, sections of the riverbank will be packed with anglers elbow-to-elbow, creating an event known locally as "combat fishing."

At the end of the day, I was both sun-soaked and bone dry, and full of wonder after seeing some of America's most pristine natural areas from water level.

Outfitting for the trip

The grandeur of the Kenai River dwarfs raft passengers.

River guide Gus

The closest thing you'll to a rapid on the peaceful Kenai River

Sitka spruce trees tower beside the river banks.

Thanks to Cruises and Tours Worldwide for hosting us on this trip. Visit their website at www.cruises-toursworldwide.com.

Sometimes I do my best thinking while hiking down a mountain.

It's a cloudy day atop Mt. Alyeska, a ski area about an hour's drive south of Anchorage. Now in mid-summer, there is no skiing, as the temperatures hover around 60 degrees. Instead, Alyeska turns into a nature lovers paradise, with many miles of hiking trails leading from the Alyeska Hotel at the bottom to upper tram station near the top of the mountain. Braver souls can hike up the 2,300-foot incline; since I had limited time before dinner, I decided to ride the aerial tram to the top, and then hike down on the 2.5 mile North Face trail.

From the top of the mountiain, I enjoyed wonderful views of Turnagain Arm, an extension of the Cook Inlet, as well as the incredible greenery of the valley below me. Thick white clouds loomed low overhead, although instead of obscuring the view, they somehow seemed to tuck me in, creating a sealed-off wonderland of steep mountainside and lush color. Though trams passed by from time to time, the valley was nearly empty; as I set out on my hike, I had the whole mountain to myselt.

I was amazed how quickly the landscape changed, as the path went from steep and rock to gentle and muddy, then finally wide and well worn. As I descended, I discoveded new plant life at about every 100 feet in elevation. The colors and shapes of these leaves and flowes mezmerized me. Although I don't know what they are called or where else they grow, I enjoyed stopping to study them along the way, marveling at their intricate structures and the way that the colorful petals stood out from the green background.

The hike down was peaceful and leisurely. I made sure to make some noise along the way, to scare off any bears that might cross my path. And I took plenty of time to ponder the beauty of this corner of Alaska -- one of the most beautiful states in the country -- and to ponder my place in such a magnificent world.

Alyeska's aerial tramway

About to bloom

Beautiful buds

Deep blue "somethings"

Raindrops and wild flowers

Thanks to Cruises and Tours Worldwide for hosting us on this trip. Visit their website at www.cruises-toursworldwide.com.

I had one of the most delicious experiences of my life today. With a well known culinary school and a thriving foodie scene, Providence has become one of the new cuisine hotspots on the east coast. Federal Hill, a local neighborhood traditionally occupied by immigrants, is home to 62 great restaurants, many of them Italian.

I took a culinary tour of Federal Hill with chef Cindy Salvato, who operates a company called Savoring Rhode Island. We started at Schialo Brothers Bakery, a traditional Italian bakery where one family has created bread, cakes and cookies in a brick oven for nearly 100 years. Next, we visited Roma, an grocery store with beiautiful meats, fresh pastas and imported olive oils, and then Tony's Colonial Food, where the proprietor offerd us a taste of mouth-melting prosciutto. From there, we visited Constantino's Venda Ravioli, a large Italian market and restaurant, where we sampled delicious cheeses and pickled peppers stuffed with mozzarella and prosciutto balls.

As if that weren't enough, Cindy took me to lunch at Zooma, a neighborhood Italian restaurant where we ordered pan-fried fresh calamari, brick-oven pizza, and a trio of pastas. The rich bolognese, pillowy gnocchih and intricate sacchettini (stuffed with cheese and mushrooms) were an overwhelming feast of flavor that may be the next best thing to Italy itself.

Fresh bread at Scialo Brothers Bakery.

Bolognese and horseradish at Zooma.

A lesson in olive oils with chef Cindy.

Prosciutto and mozzarella stuffed peppers at Venda Ravioli.

Venda Ravioli's homemade pizza.