Secretary Salazar

If you’re lucky enough to be able to take time off of work in the middle of the week, you may want to head outdoors … even more so than you usually would.

This Wednesday, in honor of Veterans’ Day, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will be waiving entrance fees on public recreation lands managed by the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation — so that includes not only parks like Joshua Tree, Death Valley, and the Channel Islands, but also smaller areas like the oasis at Big Morongo Canyon, the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument (but not the state park near Idyllwild), and big chunks of the Mojave Desert.

Time to start making plans … or coming up with a good excuse to not show up for work on Wednesday!