June is Great Outdoors Month, so grab your hiking boots and hit a trail near you! For those of you close to Washington, D.C., Great Falls Park in Virginia offers an exhilarating escape into the beauty and power of nature. From a cliff above the Potomac River, you can marvel at the rushing water pouring over a massive series of falls. It’s truly an impressive sight. Photo by Kristopher Schoenleber (http://ift.tt/18oFfjl).

Did you know a baby porcupine is called a porcupette? These cute critters have soft hair mixed with barbed quills that stick up when they feel threatened to deter predators. Porcupines sleep in trees and feed on the inner bark, twigs and leaves. They live to be 5-6 years old and have one or two young, which are born with soft quills that harden within an hour. Photo courtesy of California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

On Memorial Day, we honor those that have fallen in the service of our nation. You can take part by visiting Colonial era sites like George Rogers Clark National Historical Park in Indiana, a Civil War battlefield like Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee or a memorial on the National Mall like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. These memorials, cemeteries and battlefields help remind us of the extraordinary sacrifices made to keep us united and free. Vietnam Veterans Memorial photo by Thomas Kredo (http://ift.tt/18oFfjl). George Rogers Clark National Historical Park and Shiloh National Military Park photos by National Park Service.