The Grand Canyon Skywalk celebrates its first birthday this month, and it's been a busy year. Around 1,500 people daily don booties to walk the walk on Skywalk's 4-inch-thick glass base 4,000 feet above the canyon floor.

The Hualapai Indian tribe that owns the land requires visitors to use their bus service for the final 1.5-mile journey to the rim; cost is $30. That makes the full Skywalk experience about $60 (far less than tickets for most Vegas shows).

Skywalk is just 2 1/2 hours from Sin City, with exceptional scenery along the way; it could be the best day of your Vegas trip. www.grandcanyonskywalk.com.

PENNSYLVANIA

GETTYSBURG MILITARY PARK OPENS NEW MUSEUM IN APRIL

A new museum and visitors center at Gettysburg National Military Park will open April 14. However, the cyclorama, an 1884 oil painting designed to put visitors at the center of the battle, is still being restored and will open to the public in late September. The massive 360-degree painting depicts Pickett's Charge, the dramatic Union Army stand against Confederate troops on July 3, 1863.

A three-day re-enactment of the battle is slated for July 4-6. For tickets: www.gettysburgreenactment.com or 717-338-1525. National park information is available at www.nps.gov/gett.

VANUATU

ANCIENT GRAVE SHEDS LIGHT ON ANCESTRY OF PACIFIC NAVIGATORS

How the ancient seafarers settled the most remote Pacific islands thousands of years ago remains a tantalizing question for archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and sailors alike.

In this month's National Geographic magazine, Roff Smith brings us up to date with new findings from a tiny village near Port Vila in Vanuatu, New Caledonia. Archaeologists have found what is believed to be the oldest cemetery ever found in the Pacific islands, some 3,000 years old, containing the graves of the Lapita, "daring blue-water adventurers," whose descendants a millennium later would became the great Polynesian navigators we are familiar with today. Read more at "Beyond the Blue Horizon," at www.nationalgeographic.com.

— Chris Oliver