National parks free this week
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The new penguin habitat that the Detroit Zoo calls the world’s largest such facility offers its more than 80 residents new rocks for climbing, waves, snow and better ice conditions. A preview Wednesday showed off the $30 million center, which features an underwater gallery and two tunnels where visitors can watch four species of penguins swim above, around and below them. The penguin habitat opens Monday.
Free admission to national parks and park events themed on social media are among the plans for this week, National Park Week.
The week celebrates this year’s ongoing centennial of the National Park Service.
While some of the more than 400 national parks around the country are free all the time, there are 127 sites with entrance fees, and those fees will be waived during National Park Week.
Events during National Park Week include Earth Day projects, such as park cleanups and other volunteer activities, on Friday.
The parks are also sponsoring “InstaMeets” on Saturday, where you can gather with others in a designated place at a specific time to take photos and short videos to post on Instagram and other social media, using hashtags like #FindYourPark.
April 24 is Park Rx Day, with parks hosting recreational activities to encourage healthy lifestyles and physical and mental well-being.
Other free days in the national parks this year are Aug. 25-28, when the National Park Service founding day is observed; Sept. 24, National Public Lands Day; and Veterans Day, Nov. 11.
Details are at nps.gov/findapark/national- park-week.htm.
Zombie maze will be permanent
LOS ANGELES >> Universal Studios Hollywood plans to turn the “Walking Dead” haunted maze, which has proved wildly popular during the theme park’s last four Halloween Horror Nights, into a year-round attraction.
Starting this summer, the “Walking Dead” walk-through attraction will be housed in a permanent building on the upper lot near the main entrance that will be open to visitors 365 days a year.
Universal said the new “no-holds-barred experience” promises to be significantly more intense than recent Horror Nights iterations of the maze, with more detailed set designs, props, costumes, makeup and animatronic figures.
The Emmy Award-winning AMC zombie apocalypse television show on which the attraction is based remains a ratings juggernaut. The new permanent maze will reunite “Walking Dead” executive producer Greg Nicotero with Horror Nights creative director John Murdy.
Universal has not set an opening date for the new “Walking Dead” attraction beyond “summer,” which in theme park parlance typically means on or around Memorial Day weekend.
