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Sure, the calendar says January, there's a lot of snow out there across the country, and you haven't even thought about filing your income taxes. But it's still not too early to begin planning your national park vacation for this summer.

Cape Cod National Seashore was established 47 years ago on August 7, 1961. To create the new park, the National Park Service had to “think outside the box” and employ greenlining and cooperative stewardship.

Fierce winter storms and shifting shoals gave birth to the "Graveyard of the Atlantic," where thousands of ships have foundered since record-keeping began in the 16th century. Beginning late in the 18th century, rescuers began patrolling the East Coast in search of such wrecks.

One-hundred-and-forty-five years had passed since Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was mortally wounded by "friendly fire" in the woods at Chancellorsville, and yet it might have been yesterday. Thick forest still hangs over the waning vestige of the Old Mountain Road where the general was riding, beyond the front lines, on the night of May 2, 1863, when members of the 18th North Carolina mistook him and his aides for a Union incursion.

Steaming lobster, fresh quahogs, corn on the cob, a cold brew, sand and sun. It doesn't get much better than that at Cape Cod National Seashore, a place where the perfect summer surely could have been designed.

For years, summer trips to Cape Cod were an annual ritual for my family. My parents had retired to the Cape, and our boys loved romping in the surf and building castles in the sand. Lobster feasts, game-fishing, and whale watching were added benefits, as were exploring the seashore’s lighthouses, roaming its dunes, and looking for sea creatures in its mudflats.

How much would you pay to hike a trail in Shenandoah, or Great Smoky Mountains or Sequoia? What do you think is a reasonable fee to take a dip at Cape Cod or Cape Hatteras national seashores?