Daylight Saving Time starting earlier than it has in 35 years this year — Sunday — offers a double bonus at your local state park, recreation area or natural area (Umstead, Eno River, Falls Lake, Jordan Lake, Occonneechee Mountain locally). You don't just get one hour of added after-work daylight, but you get two more hours to spend it in a North Carolina state park, or recreation area, or natural area. Starting yesterday, the parks began closing at 8 p.m. (since November, they had been closing at 6 p.m.)

Enjoy the extra two hours.

Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield and State Parks Director Lewis Ledford held their first formal meeting Tuesday on the future of Durham's West Point on the Eno Park.

"The meeting was very informative and positive," Ledford wrote in an email to the News & Observer, but the parties came to no conclusions.

Want more trails? Fewer parking lots? More daffodils? Here's your chance to have your say.

Long-awaited service should kick in in April.