National parks map, guide available

The updated official National Park Service Map and Guide to 368 parks features a map of the United States showing locations of parks, monuments, historic sites, seashores and more. On the reverse, an alphabetical list of each property describes activities, services, facilities and contact information.

It’s available for $5, postage paid, from the National Park Society, 5335 Whip Trail, Colorado Springs, CO 80917, or by calling 1-800-578-1883.

Painted cars designed to rev race interest

Indianapolis — A plastic race car marked like a zebra, another with the black-and-white keys of a piano and dozens of others have been scattered throughout the city in the fastest art exhibit never to move.

Dubbed Art in Motion, the cars are a project of the 500 Festival, a not-for-profit volunteer organization founded in 1957 to support activities related to the Indianapolis 500 auto race.

About 100 hand-painted and decorated model Indy cars pepper the city for the exhibit, which runs through May and is designed to pull visitors away from the track to businesses downtown.

The 500 Festival hopes the public art display will do for Indianapolis what the “Cows on Parade” exhibit did for Chicago in 1999. The Chicago exhibit showcased 300 life-size exhibition cows.

Mississippi regulators OK new Biloxi casino

Jackson, Miss. — The Mississippi Gaming Commission has approved site development for the $58 million Rock-N-Roll Casino in Biloxi, the first new gambling house in Mississippi since the Beau Rivage opened in 1999 in Biloxi.

The music-themed resort will sit just behind the Palace Casino.

Plans call for 25,000 square feet of riverboat gambling space, with 800 slot machines and 22 table games. There will be a 200-room hotel, a 300-seat restaurant with views of the Back Bay and Mississippi Sound, a cabaret lounge and a 25-slip marina.

The resort will open in late 2004 or early 2005.