They might not have a white Christmas on the floor of Death Valley, but that doesn't mean they don't celebrate the holidays there!

This wreath is gracing one of the original borax ore wagons that's on display in front of the Furnace Creek Ranch.

If you do find yourself in Furnace Creek for the year-end holidays and need a snow fix, you can gander up at Telescope Peak, which at 11,043 feet tends to collect quite a bit of snow in winter.

Though a bucolic setting these days, in 1777 the Neilson Farmhouse in New York played a role in a major Revolutionary Army victory over British forces. This one-room farmhouse served as a mid-level headquarters building for the American army during the Battles of Saratoga.

Pictured is a row of 100-pound Parrot Rifles within the First Tier Casemates of Fort Sumter National Monument's Right Face. A total of 11 of these cannon were found during excavations by National Park Service archaeologists in 1959, and were unveiled during the Centennial Celebration of the first battle of the fort on April 12, 1961.

Protection for emigrants along the Oregon Trail was the motivation for the U.S. government to establish Fort Laramie near the eastern edge of the Wyoming Territory in 1849. The fort was jump-started with the purchase of buildings from the American Fur Company, which had maintained a trading post along the banks of the Laramie River.

According to the National Park Service:

To really appreciate how the "Needles" District of Canyonlands National Park got its name, you've got to go there and look around. This photo helps, but it's not like being there.

Walking about these towering, multi-colored spires must be what it would be like to walk about the landscape of a foreign planet. And now, while the days are growing short, the temperatures in Canyonlands are perfect for just this sort of "walk about."

Is it North Cascades National Park....or Glacier National Park? This scene could, of course, be seen in either, but this particular one is of mountain goats on Easy Pass in North Cascades National Park. Unfortunately, the National Park Service didn't attach the photographer's name to this photo.

Fall is fleeting in the Rocky Mountains, as this photo of Heavens Peak in Glacier National Park shows.

Jane Timmerman, whose photography graced the Traveler's homepage back in May, captured the 8,987-foot peak in mid-October. The image hints at winter and conveys a sense of moodiness so evident in the Rockies during the change of seasons.

Fall can be pretty spectacular in Shenandoah National Park, as this stitched panoramic view by Alan Pitt demonstrates. The photo was taken along Skyline Drive, looking west-southwest from the Big Run Overlook near Big Flat Mountain Campground. Rocky Top Mountain is tallest in the chain to the right, while Massanutten Mountain is in the background.

Gear: Camera: Canon Powershot S2-IS; Lens: Zoom lens - 6 mm - 72 mm - F/2.7-3.5; Focal Length: 6mm; Exposure: 1/320 sec; F-number: F/4.

Tenacious. That pretty much sums up the junipers that somehow found purchase in cracks in the granite domes that you find along the Tioga Road in Yosemite National Park. These trees have been hanging on for a long, long time in the granite landscape you can find across from Olmsted Point.

While it's amazing to gaze at these trees from the pullout at Olmsted Point, scampering up onto the granite for a close-up view of these trees is worth the added time. Only by doing so can you appreciate the twisted limbs, the worn and weathered bark, the sheer tenacity of these trees.

What's in a name? For years it's been accepted that the 800-acre national monument down below Mammoth Lakes, California, has been known as Devils Postpile. That's Devils with an "s."

Well, it didn't start out that way. When President William Howard Taft set aside the monument on July 6, 1911, only one "Devil" was involved.