For the second year in a row, and for the third time in the last four years, Yellowstone National Park has set a new annual visitation record. During the calendar year, 3,640,184 people visited the world’s first national park. Recreation visits in 2010 were 10.5 percent higher than recorded in 2009, which itself was a record year. This past year the park set monthly visitation records in June, July, August, September, and October. All park entrances recorded annual visitation increases compared to 2009 levels. Double-digit percentage increases were recorded through the North and West entrances. The West Entrance continues to be the park’s busiest, which hosted nearly 1.5 million recreational visitors in 2010. Park managers believe the record visitation was due in part to the public’s recognition that visits to national parks represent a good value for their travel dollar. By: Livingston Enterprise Staff Writer

 Ultra-high-end homes are on the market for tens of millions in Door County, Wis., and other unexpected spots. What are they doing there? v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} 0 0 1 835 4765 WealthVest Marketing 39 11 5589 14.0 Normal 0 false false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt ...

  The Montana Meth Project, known for its raw, in-your-face ads highlighting the dangers of methamphetamine, gained national recognition this week as the business magazine Barron’s highlighted it in a cover story on the nation’s top philanthropists. In “The 25 Best Givers,” the magazine ranked the Meth Project’s founder, technology mogul Thomas Siebel, as No. 3. “The Meth Project is spreading — and teenage use of methamphetamine is falling as a result,” the Barron’s story said. “(The) massive campaign of provocative antimeth ads, first rolled out in Montana, moved into Georgia this year and was stepped up in Colorado and Hawaii … In Montana, teenage meth use has fallen below the national average for the first time since 1991.” The honor comes just as the Montana Meth Project begins a $1 million capital campaign with a new executive director. In 2010, the project launched a new media campaign, expanded community action programs, and held its second statewide Paint the State contest, in which students ...

  By STEPHANIE SIMON Landscape architect Robert Rock takes pride in talking to his clients to understand just how they'll be using the green spaces he designs. In his most recent assignment, however, he hit a roadblock. "You can't ask elk what they'd like for dinner," Mr. Rock said ruefully. View Full Image The Olin Studio A design from the Olin Studio in Philadelphia would cost about $12 million and span a six-lane highway. Nor can you ask them what would induce them to nibble that dinner while strolling across a lushly planted footbridge spanning a six-lane highway. Getting elk to cross highways safely—and encouraging lynx, bear, deer and bighorn sheep to follow suit—was the key challenge in an unusual global contest that concluded this month. The ARC International Wildlife Crossing Infrastructure Design Competition asked engineers, ecologists and landscape architects to come up with an overpass bridge for pedestrians of the furry sort. The goal: to enc ...

  By AMY HOAK The art exhibit at the house in the Hamptons drew 150 people, many of whom were content to drink a glass of wine and stroll through the otherwise empty home, admiring the black-and-white photos by a New York artist. Journal Report Read the complete Wealth Adviser report . But the goal of the event, publicized to real-estate brokers through hand-delivered invitations, wasn't to sell the artwork. It was to sell the home. And it worked. "With big empty houses for sale, people can't help but walk through them quickly," says Priscilla Garston, a real-estate associate broker who owned the Hamptons home. "Photos make them hang out and pause." To sell a home in a weak market, people will try almost anything. Ms. Garston used this technique in 2007, when real-estate prices were still soaring. But the strategy works in tougher times as well: In January 2009, when "nothing was selling," she says, she used the same technique to sell a $2.2 million spec house that her hu ...

  You can imagine what a bear does when it's trotting down a wooded path and suddenly approaches asphalt.    The bear might sniff it, but it's not afraid of it. It's not going to yield for pedestrians in the street or stop at a traffic light. In most cases it's going to see where it can get some dinner throughout the linear meadow it is met with in West Yellowstone.   Along with that search for food in town, bears will follow wherever a scent of food or memory of a previous snack takes them. Some say it's just part of the unique nature of living between two forests. But there's no denying the reality of a hungry bear creating conflict along the way to dinner, conflict that can damage property and threaten lives as it wanders down the streets that are also routes for children walking to school.   Reducing conflict isn't as easy as flipping a switch or putting up a fence or moving a bear to another spot in the forest. The bears aren't going to go away. Neither are the people. And ...

  BOZEMAN (AP) — The president and CEO of Denver-based American Furniture Warehouse has announced he will donate $3 million to the College of Business at Montana State University.     College Dean Dan Moshavi says some of the money will be earmarked for the newly renamed Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship for the New West, while some will provide scholarships. The donation is one of the largest gifts MSU has ever received and is the second of this size made to the College of Business.   MSU President Waded Cruzado said Thursday the money will allow Montana State to expand its entrepreneurship classes to better meet the needs of its students. It will also provide professional development and research opportunities for faculty.   Jabs says he hopes his gift will provide opportunities for students to receive a strong education so they can compete well in a global marketplace.   Jabs, who is 80, grew up in Lodge Grass and graduated from what was then Montana State C ...

  YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. • Trails are being groomed ahead of the start of winter season in Yellowstone National Park. The roads between West Yellowstone, Mammoth Hot Springs and the South Entrance are set to open to commercially guided snowmobiles and snowcoaches on Wednesday. Travel over Sylvan Pass on the east side of Yellowstone is scheduled to begin a week later, on Dec. 22. The same winter use plan as last year will be in effect, allowing as many as 396 commercially guided snowmobiles into the park each day. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  

  Dec 13, 2010 Wealthy Chinese buy foreign homes   BEIJING - STRICT policies introduced by the government to cool the rocketing real estate market in the capital have led many of the city's richest residents to look overseas for their real estate investments. At the three-day 2010 Beijing Luxury Properties Showcase that ended on Sunday at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, more than 4,000 wealthy people attended who were capable of each investing at least 10 million yuan (S$2 million) on foreign assets, according to the organiser. Ashley Woo, the sales and marketing manager of the showcase, said the exhibition organisers invited 51 domestic and international real estate agencies that had businesses in more than 30 countries. Projects being promoted during the event included ancient castles, modern apartments and ecologically important land in Canada as well as luxury villas in Thailand and real estate in large cities in the US and Japan. Ms Woo said the average visitor to the show was a 50-some ...

  FTF Lynn O'Rourke Hayes Lynn O'Rourke Hayes is editor of FamilyTravel.com.   Western ski resorts pull out the stops to show families a snow-filled good time. Here are five places where fun and deals abound.   1Keystone, Colo. With 3,148 skiable acres, this Rocky Mountain resort 90 minutes west of Denver invites kids to join them in Kidtopia. (The website also suggests, "Parents can come, too, if they behave.") The high-altitude playground atop Dercum Mountain is sure to delight kids with the Snow Fort, slides, disco tubing and clever mazes. Kidtopia Festival weeks, designed to coincide with school holidays, provide family fun with parades, teen gatherings, movie nights and special discounts and offerings. Lodging: 1-800-328-1323. Lift tickets: 1-800-344-8878. Contact:www.keystonekidtopia.com.   2Beaver Creek, Colo. It's all about kids during this Rocky Mountain resort's Beaver Creek Loves Kids tribute to junior snow riders. Join other snow- ...