What's New in the West: September 2009

• Documentarian Ken Burns goes wild in The National Parks: America's Best Idea, a six-episode series beginning September 27 on PBS. See TV schedules and a preview at pbs.org/nationalparks [2].
• Find the Silicon Valley site where the desktop computer was born or book a stay in an Arizona missile silo using John Graham-Cumming's The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive. $30. (800) 998-9938, geekatlas.com [3].
• Notions about ethnicity are challenged in the exhibit Race: Are We So Different? October 3 to December 31 in Los Angeles at the California Science Center. (323) 724-3623, californiasciencecenter.org [4].
• A show by Andreas Gursky at the Vancouver Art Gallery in British Columbia includes over 65 photos from art-school shots to recent urban images. Until September 20. vanartgallery.bc.ca [5].
• Pedal Portland Bike Tours rolls into fall with outings such as a five-hour ride past cottonwoods and waterfalls on nine miles of the lightly trafficked Historic Columbia River Highway. $79. (503) 916-9704, pedalbiketours.com [6].
• Gourmets, nature lovers, culture seekers, and others visiting Oregon's Willamette Valley can find six specialized travel itineraries at oregonwinecountry.org/experiences [7].
• A realm of sagebrush and rough rock in Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada is the focus of Owyhee Canyonlands, a compendium of photographs by Mark Lisk and writings by William Fox. $28. (800) 657-6465, caxtonpress.com [8].
• Launch treasure hunts from picnic areas and campsites with the Geomate.jr, a kidfriendly GPS device loaded with 250,000 U.S. geocache locations. $70. mygeomate.com [9].
• The new guidebook Of Sage & Stone highlights museums, battle sites, state parks, and studios of local artisans in five driving loops in southwestern Montana. $5. (406) 467-2822, ofsageandstone.com [10].
• Steven Kazlowski's 40-plus photo show The Last Polar Bear: Facing the Truth of a Warming World runs at the University of Alaska's Museum of the North in Fairbanks through October 3. (907) 474-7505, www.uaf.edu/museum [11].

This article was first published in September 2009. Some facts may have aged gracelessly. Please call ahead to verify information.