What's the weather going to be on your trip? Ask Weather Underground's Trip Planner

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — What's the weather going to be like on your vacation?

Well, unless it's in the next two or three days, nobody can say for sure.

But you can see what the average temperatures and precipitation were like in your destination, on the same dates you're going to be there, using information at WeatherUnderground.com's Trip Planner at http://www.wunderground.com/tripplanner/index.asp.

The results even calculate the likelihood of rain, freezing weather, and high humidity.

Weather patterns tend to be seasonal, so historical information can help you plan your itinerary and decide what clothing and gear you'll need.

To use, type in the location and dates of your trip. The Trip Planner will then search the historical database for the weather conditions during that time period. The results, which are calculated from a historical records database, will help you predict how hot, cold, wet, or windy it will be.

For example, if you're traveling to Portland, Ore., around Labor Day weekend, Weather Underground's Trip Planner says that historically, the average high temperature for Aug. 28-Sept. 2 is 81 degrees, with a range of 66 to 98 degrees, and the average low is 54, with a range between 44 and 66. There's only a 16 percent chance of a hot day, a 13 percent chance of a rain day, and a 38 percent chance of a humid day.

So you'll want to prepare for warm days and cool nights, maybe by packing short-sleeved shirts and a fleece for layering. But you could gamble on leaving the umbrella home.

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See New York, Chicago, Washington on the run - literally

NEW YORK (AP) — Are you a runner? Now you can see the sights of New York, Chicago and Washington D.C. while on the run - literally.

City Running Tours offers tours for joggers, led by guides who point out places of note and offer historical facts and trivia along the way.

New York tours include an 8-mile bridge run that takes you from Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge, through the trendy Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, under elevated subway tracks and back over the Williamsburg Bridge to the Lower East Side. Other routes include running in Central Park, the sights of downtown, Greenwich Village, Harlem, the Lower East Side, and a Broadway run all the way up the famous street to the northern tip of Manhattan.

In Washington, the routes include runs with views of famous landmarks like the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the White House, and Arlington Cemetery. Chicago running tours include one themed on the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, focusing on old Chicago and historic sites; the "Wrigleyville Run," starting and ending at Wrigley Field; and a lakeshore tour along Lake Michigan.

But the company will also accommodate any schedule, any day of the year, with customized runs, whether it's a midnight run through Times Square, a sunrise run along Lake Michigan, or a midday jog around the National Mall. The basic pricing is $60 for the first 6 miles and $6 for each mile after that.

Details and tickets at http://www.cityrunningtours.com/. Tours for groups are also available.

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Some new good books with a sense of place and adventure

NEW YORK (AP) — Looking for a good book with a sense of place and adventure to get you in the mood for a trip?

Conde Nast Traveler's September issue is recommending "The New Classics," chosen from among books due out this fall.

The list includes:

-"The Animal Dialogues," by Craig Childs, published by Little, Brown, due out in December, tales of encounters with wildlife in the American and Canadian West.

-"The Far Traveler," by Nancy Marie Brown, due out in October from Harcourt, a look at the legend of a Viking woman who sailed the seas 500 years before Columbus.

-"Marco Polo," by Laurence Bergreen, out from Knopf in October, a biography of the explorer and adventurer.

-"The House on First Street," by Julia Reed, to be published in December by Ecco, the story of how the author bought her long-desired home in New Orleans, a month before Katrina.

The list also includes one book that's not exactly new. "On the Road: The Original Scroll" recreates Kerouac's first draft of the classic road-trip story. He typed the manuscript in 1951 in one long paragraph, on eight long sheets of paper, which he taped into one 120-foot-long scroll of paper. The new edition from Viking reprints the original text from the scroll in a standard book format.

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Amsterdam's newly reopened Museum of Bags and Purses

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Do you collect purses the way Imelda Marcos collected shoes?

If so, you'll want to plan a trip to the newly reopened Museum of Bags and Purses in Amsterdam.

The collection started when its founder, an antiques dealer, bought a handbag from 1820. The collection gradually grew to more than 3,000 bags. At first it was housed in a two-room villa, but in June it relocated to a 17th century house in central Amsterdam on the Herengracht canal.

The exhibits show the history of women's bags and pocketbooks in Western culture from the 16th century on, including looking at form, function, fashion and styles from both Dutch and international designers.

The building also offers two period rooms with painted ceilings and other elements dating back three and four centuries.

The museum, known locally as the Tassen museum Hendrikjein, is open daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., with a cafe and lunchroom on site. Details at http://www.tassenmuseum.nl/.

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Great ideas for Montana vacation

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — Looking for some great ideas for a late summer or fall destination?

Check out the "Great Ideas" page at Montana's Glacier Country Web site, http://www.glaciermt.com/pub/greatideas.php.

Here are some of the attractions mentioned there:

-A scenic 3.4 mile day hike in the park from Babb to Many Glacier, then heading south to the Grinnell Glacier trailhead.

-The Smokejumper Center, a few miles west of Missoula, which tells the story of the firefighters who are specially trained to work in forests as part of their duties for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management; http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/people/smokejumpers/missoula/center.html.

-Kerr Dam, which is 54 feet higher than Niagara Falls, reachable via a 1,000-foot boardwalk that takes you directly above the thundering falls, which also offer a canyon view. Whitewater rafting is available nearby. Kerr Dam is a few miles south of Polson on the Flathead River.

-Montana's largest ponderosa pine, at 194 feet tall and 78 inches wide, off Fish Creek Road, between Alberton and Superior on Interstate 90.

-Bird-watching at the Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge, about 24 miles south of Missoula on Highway 93, just north of Stevensville; the Ninepipe Wildlife Refuge at the Owl Research Institute, on Highway 93 south of Polson, and just north of St. Ignatius, http://www.owlinstitute.org; and at the Goat Creek Wildlife Trail, at the north end of the scenic Swan Valley, south from Bigfork on Highway 83.

-Fishing and rafting on the Clark Fork.

-Hiking in Montana's 10 national forests, including the Flathead - http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/flathead - and the Lolo National Forest - http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/lolo.

-A natural hot spring in, naturally, the town of Hot Springs. Take Highway 28 west of Flathead Lake and watch carefully for the markers indicating public hot springs.

-Big Mountain's Walk in the Treetops (north of Whitefish) offers an 800-foot-long boardwalk, linked from tree to tree high above the forest floor.

-The Going-to-the-Sun Road, a 52-mile traverse of Glacier National Park crossing the Continental Divide over Logan Pass at 6,646 feet. From Kalispell, head east on Highway 2, turn left at the Park entrance into West Glacier, and follow the signs to the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

-Wildlife-watching for bighorn sheep at the Koo Koo Sint Viewing Area near Thompson Falls (best time is October-December); moose in the Bob Marshall Wilderness; bison, birds, elk, antelope and other creatures at the National Bison Range.

Missoula International Airport is a 150-mile scenic drive from Glacier National Park, while Glacier International Airport in Kalispell is 35 miles from the park.

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Study: Half of orthopedic implants trigger airport metal detectors

ROSEMONT, Ill. (AP) — More than half of all orthopedic implants can be detected by metal detectors, according to a study by the orthopedic surgery department at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Harvard Medical School) in Boston.

The report, issued earlier this year in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, found that:

-Ninety percent of total knee replacements and all total hip replacements were detected, whether they were unilateral or bilateral.

-Plates, screws, intramedullary nails and wires are rarely detected.

-Cobalt-chromium and titanium implants are much more likely to be detected than stainless-steel implants.

-Lower-extremity implants are detected 10 times more often than upper-extremity and 11 times more than spine implants.

-Upper-extremity prostheses, such as total shoulder replacements, total wrist replacements and radial head replacements, were not detected.

The findings were based on a one-month study of 129 volunteers with a total of 149 implants who walked through an M-Scope three-zone metal detector used at commercial airports. The detector was programmed at both low and high levels, with sensitivities equivalent to U.S. Transportation Security Administration settings.

Fifty-seven of the 149 implants were detected at the low-sensitivity setting, and 77 were detected at the high-sensitivity level.

If you have an orthopedic implant, the TSA Web site at http://www.tsa.gov recommends that you advise security officers that you have an implanted medical device or metal implant, so that a private screening and pat-down can be arranged.

For more information about the study, visit http://tinyurl.com/2c75eu.

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New Hertz car rental program: Simply Wheelz

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Hertz has introduced a new budget car rental program, "Simply Wheelz," with online booking, self-service rental machines and rates starting as low as $15 per weekend day (two-day minimum) and $94 a week.

Online reservations are already being accepted at http://www.simplywheelz.com with the first rentals available in Orlando at the airport Sept. 14.

Customers pick up their cars using one-stop self-service rental machines, which scan a bar code from the printed Web reservation and also scans the renter's driver's license. The customer selects a few additional options, such as additional drivers and insurance/waiver options, and then the machine assigns a vehicle and prints the rental agreement. The key is in the waiting car.

Eight types of vehicles, a portable GPS system, child seats, and emergency roadside assistance are also all available.

The transaction is designed to be completed without help from an attendant, but personnel will be on hand to assist.

Like other check-in systems at hotels and airports that have become computer-automated, the new Hertz system is designed to reduce the long lines and waiting that many customers now face when picking up cars.

Additional locations for the program are expected to be added over time.

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Africa, the Lonely Planet way

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Lonely Planet has reissued its comprehensive "Africa" guidebook in an 11th edition on the 30th anniversary of its original publication.

The book runs more than 1,100 pages and covers 49 countries:

-Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia in North Africa.

-Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo in West Africa.

-Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Sao Tome & Principe in Central Africa.

-Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somaliland (with Puntland and Somalia), Tanzania and Uganda in East Africa.

-Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa.

The travel guidebook publishing company says the book was once designed purely for travelers on a shoestring, but the new edition also has listings for more sophisticated or affluent travelers who prefer not to go the do-it-yourself hostel route.

Recommendations for Mount Kenya National Park, for example, include listings for all-inclusive packages that cover park entry, camping, food, huts, a guide, cook, porters and transfers to and from the mountain. Mountain Rock Safaris Resorts & Trekking Services - http://www.mountainrockkenya.com - can take you on a Mount Kenya climb, including accommodations in the Mountain Rock Lodge near Naro Moru, for $135 a day, while all-inclusive trips from Naro Moru River Lodge run as high as $220 a day.

As an accompaniment to your Africa travel-planning, consider Lonely Planet's new "Africa" phrasebook, with useful words, phrases and pronunciation in Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, French, Hausa, Malagasy, Portuguese, Shona, Swahili, Wolof, Xhosa, Yoruba, and Zulu.