Travel briefs
BALTIMORE -- A 1,900-person cruise ship will begin sailing from Baltimore to the eastern Caribbean and down the East Coast next year. Celebrity Mercury will offer 12-night cruises to St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Maarten and Tortola starting in November 2009. It also will offer nine-night excursions to Charleston, S.C., Key West, Fla., Cococay and Nassau.
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- The annual Fall Tours of Homes and Gardens sponsored by the Preservation Society of Charleston is back through Oct. 26. It's the 32nd year the tours have been showing off the interiors of Charleston's private homes, gardens, churches and public buildings. Tickets can be purchased at www.preservation society.org. Each tour is $45, but a $120 ticket includes Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening tours for the same weekend.
HUNTINGTON, Utah -- A memorial honoring the nine men who died in the 2007 Crandall Canyon mine collapse was unveiled last month in Huntington, Utah. It features deep-relief bronze portraits of the six miners trapped in the mine and the three miners who died trying to rescue them. It is at the Route 31 Scenic Byways Rest Area, in Huntington City, at the base of Huntington Canyon; www.templetonsculpture.com.
ROANOKE, Va. -- What do the Carter Family music group, Francis Gary Powers and Daniel Boone have in common? The legendary country musicians, U-2 pilot shot down over Russia and frontiersman all have connections to Virginia's coal country. That made them eligible for honors on a new Southwest Virginia Walk of Fame in Big Stone Gap. The new attraction features engraved tiles on the grounds of the Southwest Virginia Museum; www.swvamuseum.org. AP