Official Guide to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Day Paddling Florida’s 10,000 Islands and Big Cypress Swamp
From southwestern Florida's Marco Islands to Cape Sable, Floridian natural historian, writer, and photographer Jeff Ripple explores the extraordinary beauty of Florida's 10,000 Islands, many of which are still unnamed. This guide features saltwater paddling tours on the northern and central 10,000 Islands, as well as a handful of freshwater tours in the Big Cypress Swamp. Trips emanate from multiple put-ins and take-outs, including Rookery Bay Estuarine Reserve (Marco Island), Goodland, Port of the Island, Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, Ever-glades City, and Big Cypress National Preserve. Most guidebooks devoted to paddlers and covering Everglades National Park and southern Florida focus on overnight trips and paddling the Wilderness Waterway. This book is different. All of the routes covered in this guide, most of which are loop trips, can be covered in a day and are 14 miles long or less; several trips are 5 miles long or less. Each trip includes information on distance, diffi-culty, recommended charts, and navigational features, as well as winds, tides, and safety issues. The author also surveys the human and natural history that you'll encounter-alligators, manatees, striped mullet (which may jump in your boat), mangrove trees-in the region, which comprises the largest tropical evergreen forest in the U.S. Humans have been living here for thousands of years-the first Native American inhabitants were probably ancestors to the Calusa, a nonagricultural people with a rich and diverse culture.
North Carolina
A leading authority on the people and events that have shaped North Carolina over four centuries, Powell here provides a sharply drawn overall history of the state for general readers. In twelve chapters this volume traces North Carolina's history from England's initial efforts to found a colony in America in the sixteenth century to uncertain and often-turbulent times as the final quarter of the twentieth century approached.
Lone Star Travel Guide the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex
The Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is a nearly 40-mile long mega-metropolitan area anchored by Dallas on one end and Fort Worth on the other, with the area between filled in with more than a dozen attractive, interconnected cities. Among the unheralded facts about these interlocking cities are that they contain more restaurants per capita than New York City (5,000 in Dallas alone), are home to all the major professional sports (including NASCAR and rodeo), and house 30 museums. This guidebook gives readers detailed information on the wide range of choices in lodging, restaurants, and everything worth seeing and doing, not only in Dallas and Fort Worth, but in eleven of the smaller cities between the two. They include: Addison, Arlington, Farmers Branch, Garland, Grand Prairie, Grapevine, Irving, Mesquite, North Richland Hills, Plano and Richardson. In addition to the categories one would normally expect in a guide book, the authors have started each city listing with a description of free visitor services, as well as "Bird's Eye View" spots - great places to get a panoramic view of the city. (In Arlington it's the top of an oil derrick at Six Flags.) Finally, for the truly adventurous, there are plenty of "Offbeat" places of unusual interest that don't fit into the routine tourist categories.
Exploring North Carolina’s Natural Areas
North Carolina boasts a natural environment of exceptional richness and diversity. From the mountains to the coast, the state is home to an extraordinary variety of publicly accessible sites that showcase aspects of its ecology, geology, biology, and natural history. This book leads the reader on thirty-eight field trips to some of the most interesting and instructive of these natural landscapes.Written by leading naturalists from across the state, this collection of "eco-tours" includes excursions to each of its four major regions: the coast, the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont, and the mountains. Each trip traces a thirty- to seventy-mile driving route that connects preserved areas, hiking trails, scenic overlooks, nature trails, and other sites of interest. All entries provide a map of the route, describe what can be seen and learned along the way, and discuss especially noteworthy features.An essential resource for anyone who treasures North Carolina's natural heritage, this book will inspire and inform travelers throughout the Tar Heel state.
The North Carolina Atlas
As North Carolina enters a new century, perhaps no southern state faces a more intriguing combination of challenges and opportunities. Changes in the state's economy, shifts in its population, and a widening breach between urban and rural areas are just some of the forces that are reshaping North Carolina at this pivotal time in its history.The North Carolina Atlas will be an invaluable aid in any effort to better comprehend the past, present, and future of our changing state. Using text and more than three hundred maps, charts, and photographs, the book offers an in-depth yet accessible look at the state's physical environment, history, population, and economy as well as such other aspects of life as government, politics, education, health, culture, and outdoor recreation. Tracing the shifts and patterns that have made North Carolina what it is today, the book also forecasts where these and other trends are taking us in this new century.
Very Charleston
Cobblestone streets leading to perfectly preserved historic homes. Intricate wrought-iron gates opening to lush, fragrant gardens. A skyline of steeples and a river harbor bustling with schooners and sailboats. Charleston is one of America's most charming cities. In vibrant watercolors and detailed sketches, artist Diana Gessler captures the beauty and riches that make Charleston so unique: White Point Gardens, the Spoleto Festival, Rainbow Row, Waterfront Park, Fort Moultrie, the beaches of Sullivan's Island, sumptuous Lowcountry cuisine, and handmade sweetgrass baskets. Full of fascinating details--on everything from the art of early entertaining, the city's inspired architectural and garden designs, and George Washington's Southern tour to famous Charlestonians and the flags of Sumter--Very Charleston celebrates the city, the Lowcountry, the people, and our history. Hand-lettered and full color throughout, Very Charleston includes maps, an index, and a handy appendix of sites. With her cheerful illustrations and love for discovering little-known facts, Diana Gessler has created both an entertaining guide and an irresistible keepsake for visitors and Charlestonians alike.
Trials of the Monkey
"When Darwin called his second book The Descent of Man instead of The Ascent of Man he was thinking of his progeny." So declares Darwin's great-great grandson Matthew Chapman as he leaves behind his stressful career as a Hollywood screenwriter and travels to Dayton, Tennessee where in 1925 creationist opposition to the teaching of evolution in schools was played out in a famous legal drama, the Scopes Monkey Trial. The purpose of this journey is to see if opinions have changed in the seventy- five intervening years. A defiant atheist, Chapman is confronted not only by the fundamentalist beliefs that continue to banish the theory of evolution but by his own spiritual malaise as the outward journey becomes an inward quest, a tragicomic "accidental memoir". "First there was Charles Darwin, two yards long and nobody's fool. Then there was his son, my great-grandfather, Sir Francis Darwin, an eminent botanist. Then came my grandmother Frances, a modest poet who spent a considerable amount of time in rest-homes for depression From her issued my beloved mother, Clare, who was extremely short, failed to complete medical school, and eventually became an alcoholic. Then we get down to me. I'm in the movie business." Trials of the Monkey combines travel writing and reportage, as Chapman records his encounters in the South, with history and the accidental memoir of a man full of mid-life doubts in a genre-breaking first book that is darkly funny, provocative and poignant.
Falcon Virginia
Forty of the best road rides in Virginia, from the Eastern Shore to the mountainous west.
Motorcycle Adventures in the Southern Appalachians
Nothing could be finer than riding in the North Carolina mountains--and southwest Virginia, and East Tennessee. Hawk Hagebak's second motorcycle adventure guide takes you along winding backroads in the NC High Country, through the worlds shortest tunnel at Tennessee's Backbone Rock, and from Asheville's "Paris of the South" vibe to the mile-high wonders of the Blue Ridge Parkway. This guide includes 26 rides in all, from 16 to 144 miles. Sample the culinary delights of the region, visit motorcycle-only resorts, and take advantage of this book's complete directions, easy to read maps, road conditions, motorcycle laws for the Southeastern states, and more--all liberally sprinkled with the author's special brand of humor and practical advice.
Fun Texas Festivals and Events
Texans will use any excuse to have fun! Pull up a chair and let a legendary Texas storyteller take you on a yearlong tour to 1,600 of his favorite fun Texas events in over 600 towns.
Up for Grabs
A wandering Floridian who made his way home in the early 1970s, John Rothchild writes about the state with the savvy of a native and the perspective of an outsider. His personal and historical travelogue reads alternately like a litany of 20th-century ills and a Monty Python rendering of the Great American Dream. In Florida, both versions are true. Settled through the chicanery of a few enterprising brokers and real estate wizards, Rothchild's Florida is a civilization built from scratch, out of the most unusual ingredients. While much of the state seems younger than many of its inhabitants, he observes, it hosts all the modern demographic, economic, and social problems. Still, those ills don't dispel the magic of its sunshine, beaches, and exotic fauna or undermine its status as a great American myth. Told within the framework of Rothchild's travels from Miami to the Everglades, around the state and back again, Up for Grabs is part history, part travelogue, part journalism, part autobiography-a humorous and appreciative tour of a society fabricated from a state of mind and erected on land that was "ninety percent underwater ninety percent of the time." John Rothchild, a former editor of Washington Monthly, columnist for Time and Fortune, and contributor to Esquire, Rolling Stone, Harper's Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine, is author or coauthor of nine books, including A Fool and His Money and Voice of the River, the autobiography of Marjory Stoneman Douglas. He lives in Miami Beach, Florida.
Weird Georgia
Weird Georgia is the result of twenty-five years of research on strange and unexplained events that have been reported as taking place in the Peach State. Filled with factual accounts, not rehashed folklore, and supported by reputable evidence.
Out West
One hundred and eighty years after Lewis and Clark's "Voyage of Discovery" (1804-1806), Dayton Duncan set out in a Volkswagen camper to retrace their steps. Out West is an account of three separate journeys: Lewis and Clark's epic adventure through uncharted wilderness; Duncan's retracing of the historic trail, now in various ways tamed, paved, and settled; and the journey of the American West in the years in between. Readers traveling with Duncan will encounter the people who inhabit today's West: farmers and ranchers, cowboys and mountain men, Native Americans, residents of dying small towns, city dwellers who have survived cycles of boom and bust. From the Gateway Arch in St. Louis to the Oregon coast, readers will be treated to a landscape as variously impressive as its people.
100 Trails of the Big South Fork
* 100 hikes, their maps, and driving directions to the trail heads * Includes Big South Fork park history, natural history, geology, and safety information The Big South Fork has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most beautiful recreation areas in the U.S., with a trail system that lets you hike from Tennessee to Kentuck and back. Backpacking, hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding opportunities on secluded trails abound in this 123,000-acre area. This guidebook covers all the trails of the Big South Fork plus adjacent national forests and areas. Trails for hikers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders are clearly identified and practical information about each trail is also included.
Backroads of Texas
This new edition takes you off the major highways to discover the sights, scenes, history, and places that make the Lone Star State unique.
Touring South Carolina's Revolutionary War Sites
The 21 tours in this book tell about Revolutionary War South Carolina at the sites where events occurred.
Cape Hatteras
This is the complete story of the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras, which for almost two hundred years has guided mariners through the treacherous waters off North Carolina's easternmost point.
A Walk in the Woods
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The classic chronicle of a "terribly misguided and terribly funny" (The Washington Post) hike of the Appalachian Trail, from the author of A Short History of Nearly Everything and The Body "The best way of escaping into nature."--The New York Times Back in America after twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. The AT offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes--and to a writer with the comic genius of Bill Bryson, it also provides endless opportunities to witness the majestic silliness of his fellow human beings. For a start there's the gloriously out-of-shape Stephen Katz, a buddy from Iowa along for the walk. But A Walk in the Woods is more than just a laugh-out-loud hike. Bryson's acute eye is a wise witness to this beautiful but fragile trail, and as he tells its fascinating history, he makes a moving plea for the conservation of America's last great wilderness. An adventure, a comedy, and a celebration, A Walk in the Woods is a modern classic of travel literature. NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
San Antonio
You'll remember more than the Alamo with this book as your guide to San Antonio. Completely up-to-date and easy to use, this guide gives you the history, highlights, and hot spots of the nation's eighth largest city.
Muleshoe and More
You've always wondered about those peculiar and colorful town names. Now here comes the full and often remarkable explanantions. Perfect for new Texans, transplanted Texans, and history buffs, this book blends human interest, curious circumstances, humor and even constroversy with local historical facts surrounding the origins of Texas town names.
Mississippi Solo
Since the publication of his first book, Mississippi Solo, Eddy L. Harris has been praised for his travel writing. In this exciting reissue of his classic travelogue, readers will come to treasure the rich insightful prose that is as textured as the Mississippi River itself. They will be taken by the hand by an adventurer whose lifelong dream is to canoe the length of this mighty river, from Minnesota to New Orleans. The trip's dangers were legion for a Black man traveling alone, paddling from "where there ain't no black folks to where they still don't like us much." Barge waives loom large, wild dogs roam the wooded shores, and, in the Arkansas dusk, two shotgun-toting bigots nearly bring the author's dream to a bloody . Sustaining him through the hard weeks of paddling were the hundreds of people who reached out to share a small piece of his challenge. Mississippi Solo is a big, rollicking, brilliant book, a wonderful piece of American adventure, and an unforgettable story of a man testing his own limits.
Georgia’s Lighthouses and Historical Coastal Sites
Though the Georgia coast is a mere 110 miles long, a wealth of historic beauty--natural and manmade--lies between the Savannah and St. Mary's Rivers. The last-settled and poorest of the original thirteen colonies of the United States, Georgia is a unique combination of war-torn history and genteel character. Here you'll find stories of Civil War soldiers, pioneers and settlers, Native Americans, seafarers and pirates (including Blackbeard), and even a ghost or two. Some of the places you'll visit: First Presbyterian Church, where smugglers hoisted a horse into the belfry to divert the townspeople's attention from their nefarious activities. St. Simons Lighthouse, one of America's oldest continuously working lighthouses and home to the ghost of keeper Frederick Osborne, whose footsteps can be heard in the tower at night. Jekyll Island Club, an elegant, posh retreat established in 1886 by some of the wealthiest families in America, including the Astors, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts. These and other lighthouses, plantations, churches, forts, and summer cottages of wealthy Northerners and Southerners alike stand as testaments to the rich and provocative history of this, the most Southern of Southern states. Each site is illustrated with a full color painting.
Birder's Guide to Texas
For Texas residents and visitors alike, this book is your best guide to the outstanding birding opportunities in the Lone Star State. It reveals where you can find resident, migrant, and rare birds. Explicit driving directions, maps, checklists, and detailed descriptions of hot birding sites make this book the perfect guide for nature lovers, casual bird observers, Life List compilers, and dedicated ornithologists.
The Florida Reader
From early Spanish myths and Seminole and African-American folktales to the latest descriptions of modern Miami, this anthology includes writings by such authors as Ralph Waldo Emerson, John James Audubon, Zora Neale Hurston, Zane Grey, Wallace Stevens, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Jose Yglesias, and Harry Crews.
