Family Travel Friday

Visiting a dairy

Destination: Hit the U.S. Highways

Books: Kids Love Travel Guides by George Zavatsky and Michele Zavatsky

By Jennifer Close

When deciding which book to write about this month, I chose Kids Love I-75. Then I thought about sharing some information about Kids Love Florida. I was standing so close to my travel bookshelf that I couldn’t help but pull Kids Love I-95 off of the shelf. As I stared at these books, I decided to just share my love for the whole series by George and Michele Zavatsky.

My name is Jennifer and I am addicted to the Kids Love Travel books.

Jennifer Loves Kids Love Books

The Kids Love Travel Guides series has both Interstate Guides and State Guides. I particularly like the Interstate Guides because if you are going to spend some time driving I-75 and I-95, these are the books for you. Even in the age of smart phones and quick access to information, I love these Interstate Guides because they are filled with various stops at the many exits off of the Interstate. Both books include information about the different activities that can be found at each exit, hours, admission, whether they have food or restrooms, and more. The maps found throughout are my favorite parts of the book. Each map pictures the exits, what can be found at the exit like hotels, picnic areas and rest stops, and shows how far it is to the next exit.

Mayfield Dairy, Braselton, Georgia

Kids Love I-75 travels along the interstate from Michigan to Florida. We throw this book in the car anytime we will be on I-75. While traveling north on I-75 during one road trip, we were able to make family rest stops a little bit more exciting. When we were planning our trip, we referenced the book and realized that the Mayfield Dairy was right of the interstate. Instead of a quick bathroom stop where the kids ran around a grassy area, we were able to tour the Mayfield Dairy and treat ourselves to ice cream before the rest of the long trip.

The State Guides cover family friendly activities in the following states: Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland and DC, Michigan, Missouri, The Carolinas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and DC, Wisconsin and Tennessee. Kids Love Floridais broken up into the different regions of the state and includes activities for children. Each activity lists a brief description of what you and your family can do, admission prices, hours of operation, website address, phone number, location and any other pertinent information you might need before your visit. The best part about these books is that each activity has been kid-tested and kid-approved by Mrs. Zavatsky and her family.

The state guides are great for not only families who live in these states but also for families who are going to be visiting. We are planning a trip to Maryland and Virginia this summer so I am trying to decide whether or not I should get both state books or stick with the state in which we are going to spend the most time. I will probably just end up getting both books!

The Kids Love Travel Guides cost about fifteen dollars each and several are available for purchase via download from the Kids Love Travel website.  ( You can get some guides on sale for $12.95 right now at the Kids Love Travel website)

Note from Jennifer: I received  review copies of Kids Love I-95 and Kids Love I-75.  As always, my opinions are my own with no outside influences. Photographs belong to Jennifer. Please respect her copyright.

The giveaway books (plural) today are perfect for a road trip:  Kids’ Love I-95 (new edition) and Drive I -95 by Stan Posner and Sandra Phillips-Posner (2007 edition). Today’s prize  books go to one person who comments, subscribes, tweets or mentions us on Google+ before the deadline.  (You can comment on this post or on an earlier post. Just do it before Monday, January 16, 3:00 a.m. MST. If you already subscribe by e-mail and want an extra entry as a subscriber, be sure to tell me that in the comments. See complete contest rules here.)

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Old Town San Diego

Destination: California

Book: California: On-the-Road-Histories by Victor Silverman and Laurie Glover

Interlink Books publishes hundreds of books that add depth to our travel.  I have raved here before about their Traveller’s History (eg. this one on Italy) series, which capsulize the entire history of a country. So I looked forward to taking a look at the On-the-Road-Histories, a series that will eventually cover all 50 states.  The publisher sent me a complementary copy of  California: On the Road Histories, their most current volume in this series, for review.

This brick of a book contains a very thorough history of the state that equals the size of many countries. I particularly like that it does not ignore the first people who inhabited California, because although the Spanish history provides a fascinating period and many interesting sites to visit, Europeans were latecomers to the varied landscape of the state. Kudos also for telling the bad along with the good.

It is rare to read a history that is as entertaining as it is informative. The writers refuse to take themselves–or their subject–too seriously.  Anyone who has driven through the desert community of Barstow, on the old Route 66, will chuckle at the following excerpt, although I’m sure the Chamber of Commerce is clamoring for an equal-time response. In a discussion of archaeological debates about the date of first residence in California, the book says:

” (Ruth) Simpson vigorously advocated the view that the stone chips were indeed tools created by people,  but most other anthropologists disagreed, rejecting the idea that people came to Barstow so long ago.  Why anyone would go there now is another story.”

Endless road

I have no doubt that historians everywhere are throwing their hats in the air, celebrating the freedom these writers have taken to express their unvarnished opinion. Because although history is always, in the long run, personal opinion, the serious historian must disguise her facts as neutral and uphold the myth that what they are writing is fact.

The book includes small featurettes, set aside in colored blocks, on interesting people who might not otherwise make it into the main narrative, contemporary quotations, song lyrics, and other snippets of information.  The authors have included fascinating historic pictures and reproductions of ads, articles, etc. to bring an immediacy to each of the periods they discuss.

Mural at Twenty-Nine Palms, CA of historic mining camp

What they do not include, however, are aids for someone who is actually ON the road, to put this knowledge of history to use.  One road map in the beginning of the book provides only an overview of the state–a fold out map indicating historic sites would have been nice. I wished for more of an indication of where one might travel to visit historic sites woven into the narrative, or closely associated with particular chapters, rather than a brief list of museums, Native American sites, fairs and festivals and history web sites. Why did they choose to list five pages of Native American sites, and none of Spanish missions and other sites from that and other periods? Why did they choose not to include some indication of how to find the sites they do mention? The book lists information by county rather than by nearby highway (Ahem, this is an on the ROAD book, after all.) In essence, the impression is that the series (I assume all the books follow the same format) simply points the traveler at the web rather than providing useful travel information in the book.

San Diego today

Granted, this is meant as background reading rather than a guide book. Then, please, do not call in “On-the-Road.”  I’m sorry that Interlink Books (whom I love dearly–and not just for contributing to Passports With Purpose) did not choose to include these books in their “Traveller’s History” series instead of implying there is something particularly suitable for road trips about the newer series.

Bottom line:  If you are taking a trip to one of the states covered by On-The-Road-Histories (listed below), by all means visit Interlink Books and add that state’s history to your travel library. It will enhance your understanding of the state and amuse you in the bargain. Just don’t expect it to help when you are actually on the road.

Other On-the-Road Histories:

• Alaska
• Hawaii
• Kentucky
• Minnesota
• Michigan
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• South Carolina
• Texas
• Wisconsin

Which of the Interlink On-the-Road Historiy states will be on your road-trip agenda for next year? We’re hoping for Alaska.

Note: All these pictures belong to me, some scanned from old print photos. If you would like to use any of these photos, please ask permission first.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destination: Mansfield, Ohio

Movie: The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

When I hear the term “movie magic,” rather than think of the technology– shadows move around so that we think they are real–I think of the magic as an unknowable X factor that appears for the fortunate few movies. Casablanca had it.  Recently  The King’s Speech had it. And  Shawshank Redemption definitely captured some movie-magic-fairy-dust that made it rise above the mundane possibilities of a Prison Movie, or a Buddy Movie to become a movie that inspires lasting adoration in its viewers.

Stephen King wrote Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. He set it in an imagined prison called Shawshank in the state of Maine. The two main characters were an intelligent banker falsely accused of killing his wife (Andy Dufresne) and a street-smart Irishman (Red) who is the long-time prison wheeler-dealer.

From reception room to cells, Ohio Reformatory as Shawshank Prison (with leftover Halloween decor)

Movie makers made a few changes, of course.  They found the setting they were looking for at the Ohio State Reformatory in central Ohio.  A brilliant choice that combines a Gothic exterior and church-like reception area with 6 tiers of claustrophobic cells. They settled on boyish-looking Tim Robbins as the thoughtful Andy and very un-Irish Morgan Freeman as “Red.”  And inside joke in the film has Andy asking Red how he got the name. Long pause. “Maybe because I’m Irish,” says a grinning Freeman.

Ohio Reformatory cell block

To the movie-makers’ credit, they helped the magic along by giving adequate attention to the complexities of each of the characters–smarmy prisoners, cruel captain of the guard and the self-righteous warden.  While there is never any doubt about whose side we are on–who is good and who is evil–there is not a cardboard cutout in the bunch.

It is particularly satisfying to watch Andy outsmart the system with clever and bold plays, like becoming a tax advisor to the guards, making up a horrendous result of brain damage that persuades the “sisters” to back off on rape, and persistently bugging the state until he gets library improvements. Of course his final trick is after serving 20 years, he demonstrates that he was not the trusted model prisoner everyone thought.

Prisoners in the wood shop listening to Mozart (re-enactment)

But Andy’s mind games only demonstrate he is someone to pay attention to and therefore his somewhat platitudinous advice to Red and others sticks with us. He inspires the prisoners by purloining the loud speaker system and playing a Mozart aria for all to hear. In solitary he says, “I had Mr. Mozart with me,” tapping his chest, “In here.”  He demonstrates the choice “to get busy living” is better than the passive “get busy dying.”  Ultimately, he gives us hope to overcome our fears, despite the fact that Red warns Andy that “inside” hope is a dangerous thing. Red gets the last word of the movie, and that word is “Hope.”

People pour into the city of Mansfield and the surrounding Ohio countryside looking to touch some of that movie magic.  The city has caught on and offers a brochure for a self-guided tour, and you can also book a complete tour with a step-on guide from the Shawshank Trail web site. (And see my companion post to this one about how Hollywood affected Mansfield in my guest post at Reel Life With Jane.)

Visitors tell the tour guides how the movie changed their lives.  Howe it affected them as they faced difficult times.  They want to see the courtroom where Andy was tried, the prison, the rooming house and park bench where James Whitmore’s character Brooks went when he was released. But most of all, they want to see the Oak Tree.

The Shawshank Oak Tree, after wind damage

At the end of the movie, Andy instructs Red that if he gets out, he should go to that oak tree and dig up something Andy has hidden.  He does, and sets off on a hope-filled trip to find his old friend.

Even Jodie Puster of the Mansfield Convention and Visitors Bureau was amazed at the international news coverage when that oak was damaged in a wind storm last summer.  Although the tree grows on private property and you can’t walk right up and touch it, you can park across the Pleasant Valley Road and gaze at the half that remains. Like Red and Andy, the tree is busy living–despite a personal catastrophe.  Perhaps it has even more meaning now than it did when it was untouched and majestic.

I was able to follow the Shawshank Trail a part of a press tour arranged by the Mansfield Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. All photos here belong to me. Please ask permission before making copies or using on the Internet.

Believe it or not, I had not seen Shawshank Redemption before I went on this tour.  Since it is arguably the most popular movie (based on DVD and video tape sales) how is that possible?  And how about you?  Have you seen it? How did it affect you? Have you visited the locations where it was filmed? (For more specifics about the tour, please take a look at my post on Reel Life With Jane.)

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Destination: The American Road Trip

Book: Travels With Charley, In Search of America by John Steinbeck

By Edie Jarolim

John Steinbeck and Charley

Woe to the author who becomes a classic, especially one who has been awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature. The uninitiated reader — or the one who only knows the books assigned in high school — is likely to suspect that the author’s works are going to be Good For You, and therefore not much fun.

Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to the delightful Travels with Charley in Search of America: (Centennial Edition) (Centennial Edition)by John Steinbeck, which I just read for the first time. Of course it helps that Charley is a French poodle. No book with a dog as a title character can take itself too seriously.

Steinbeck was famous for such novels as The Grapes of Wrath  and Cannery Row by 1960, when he set off on his journey from his home on Long Island, New York, to reconnect with America. He had spent a good part of the 1950s in France and England and was worried that he had become a stranger to the country that had inspired him to write.

I was a little concerned about the book’s potential for pretentiousness when I discovered that Steinbeck had named his custom-designed vehicle — part pickup truck, part RV — Rocinante, after the horse in Don Quixote. I needn’t have worried. Steinbeck not only chose the anti-hero who tilting at windmills to emulate, but he deflates his own literary conceit early on, writing: “I do not know how many people recognized the name [Rocinante], but surely no one ever asked about it.”

The real Rocinante, in The Steinbeck Center

That this memoir is neither heroic nor macho was one of the things that surprised me most about it. I’d imagined it was going to be a less druggy, more socially conscious version of On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Far from it. Along with having a dog along as a conversation opener — “A dog, particularly an exotic like Charley, is a bond between strangers” — Steinbeck observes that “the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost.” Real men don’t ask for directions, and some of the funniest scenes in this book involve Steinbeck’s doing just that. When he inquires of a taciturn Maine state trooper where Deer Island is, the trooper only points, never speaks. And to the author’s annoyance, a cook at a roadside restaurant in the Twin Cities tells Steinbeck, who has been trying to find Sinclair Lewis’ birthplace, “Nobody can get lost in Minneapolis. I was born there and I know.”

He also talks quite often about his feelings of loneliness on the road. And he clearly misses the companionship of his wife. It has been said that this is the book of an old man (although Steinbeck was 58, which as we know is the new 40). If that’s so, viva maturity.

The other thing that surprised me was how contemporary this book felt. I’d expected a world preserved in amber, a quaint report from another era. Instead, this travelogue feels completely fresh, with Steinbeck complaining about the homogenization of the country, the increase of large highways, plastic wrapping, bland food…. Of a roadside restaurant he writes:

The food is oven-fresh, spotless and tasteless; untouched by human hands. I remembered with an ache certain dishes in France and Italy touched by innumerable human hands.

At the same time, Steinbeck is willing to be open minded about many of the changes in America. He visits people who live in a mobile home and, after listening to them extol the virtues of their life, muses: “Could it be that Americans are a restless people, a mobile people…the pioneers, the immigrants who people the continent, were the restless ones in Europe.”

Steinbeck’s reflections about the nature of his perceptions also struck me as being very modern — or post modern. There are many passages that give a vivid sense of place, but there are more that talk about the nature of the travel experience itself. Steinbeck readily admits his views of nature are based on his mood:

I discovered long ago in collecting and classifying marine animals that what I found was closely intermeshed with how I felt at the moment. External reality has a way of not being so external after all.

I could go on, but this is the first meeting of the Pet Travel Book Club and one of the key features of a book club is a discussion. I’m interested in knowing what you thought of the book, of course, but I’m also interested in some larger questions, spurred by an article by Charles McGrath published earlier this year in The New York Times: “A Reality Check for Steinbeck and Charley.” The gist of the article is that this memoir is really a work of fiction.

Travels With Charley Map at the Steinbeck Center

Does it matter? As a one-time literary scholar, it probably should to me but it doesn’t. I also suspect that Steinbeck might have ended up being berated by Oprah, as James Frey was, and I find that disturbing.

Do you think that the dialogue is stilted, as McGrath contends?

Do you think this is a dark book, as McGrath says?

This is an unusual book club. It is also meeting on Will My Dog Hate Me , where we will discussing the book as it relates to Steinbeck’s relationship with/depiction of Charley. I hope you’ll join us there too.

Next month we’ll be reading Following Atticus: Forty-Eight High Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary Friendship

Note from VMB: What a great choice to kick off the pet travel book club! I’ve been a real Steinbeck fan, and I’ll reply in the comment section to the latest attack on him. But for now, if you want to see more at A Traveler’s Library, these posts were popular: Cannery Row , Steinbeck and McMurtry (with my own review of Travels With Charley), and a guest post by Jessie Vogts about an interview with the author of Steinbeck’s California, a terrific guide for travelers to Steinbeck’s homeland.

All photos here were taken by Vera Marie Badertscher at the Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California. Please do not reuse without permission.  The title links to Amazon allow you to conveniently shop for Steinbeck books or anything else that strikes your fancy and at the same time earns a few pennies for Edie Jarolim. She thanks you. 

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Book: A Volume of Friendship: The Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Isabella Greenway 1904-1953, Edited by Kristie Miller and Robert H. McGinnis

Roosevelt Cottage at Campobello

“It has been such lovely weather that just to be alive was all one wanted….”  Eleanor Roosevelt in letter to Isabella Greenway in August, 1906. Isabella Greenway was the first female member of Congress form Arizona and built The Arizona Inn in Tucson which is still going strong.

When my sister and I decided to travel on a road trip in Nova Scotia, we looked at the map for our route, and noticed that Campobello Island sits on the Maine/Canada border. Canada and the U.S. have created an International Park at the old Roosevelt compound. I have long been entranced with Campobello, so glowingly mentioned in Eleanor Roosevelt’s letters, and we are both interested in politics and former Presidents, so we decided to make a slight detour to Campobello on our way to Nova Scotia. I had met Kristie Miller, the editor of the book, A Volume of Friendship, and have read three of her books. I went back to this one to remind me of Eleanor’s exact words.

In 1916, Isabella writes to Eleanor: “I picture you on your enchanted island.”

Dining Room of cottage near Roosevelts

My sister Paula and I knew that this trip was too short to do justice to the island. After all, the Roosevelts uprooted their household and moved all their children (eventually five), along with servants and all they needed to exist nearly every summer. My sister and I were only going to spend the night.

I was growing accustomed to managing quite a small army on moves from Washington to Hyde Park and to Campobello and back.  Eleanor Roosevelt in This is My Story, her autobiography.

At first they were staying with Franklin’s mother in her long-time summer home (purchased in 1883 when Franklin was one year old).

Eventually, “Mama” bought a 34-room “cottage” on 5 acres for Eleanor and Franklin and their “chicks.” Eleanor was delighted.

Franklin and I love our house. The view is too lovely, the sailing glorious, the weather deliciously cool, but of course, people, there simply are none.  Eleanor to Isabella, 1909

View from back of Roosevelt Cottage

The “no people” is a slight exaggeration, since the extensive Roosevelt family and friends tended to come and stay for weeks. But still, the isolation must have been a relief from their otherwise busy political life in Albany New York, New York City, and later Washington D.C.

The letters to Isabella Greenway in this book unveil a different Eleanor Roosevelt than the famous dynamo of later days. When Isabella and Eleanor wrote, they were young girls, and Eleanor was very shy and not at all interested in public life. Isabella Greenway was an enthusiastic, energetic young woman, who was soon to marry and have two children. However, her husband, Bob contracted tuberculosis and they settled on a ranch on the Arizona/New Mexico border.  After her first husband died, Isabella married John Greenway. Both her husbands had served in Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.  Tragically, Greenway died after only two years of marriage.

Isabella went on to become a politician–the first female member of Congress from Arizona–and Eleanor and Isabella shared their political interests as avidly as they once had shared gossip about friends and news about their young children.

After 1921, when FDR was diagnosed with polio after a swim in the cold Bay of Fundy left him feeling sick, the Roosevelts spent less time on the island. Instead, they went to Warm Springs, Georgia. FDR was elected Governor of New York State and then President of the United States and after he became President, he spent brief periods on the island according to this FDR web site

The Roosevelt home on Campobello Island is now an International Park.

Kristie Miller is a whiz at biography. I first read a book about her female relative, Ruth Hanna McCormick and her latest is Ellen and Edith, Woodrow Wilson’s First Ladies

There is no charge to visit the International Park, which is open most days from 10 am to 6 pm. We found that an hour and a half were adequate to see the Roosevelt cottage, the Hubbard cottage next door and the small museum, plus watch a short film in the visitors center. In nicer weather, we would have walked down to the beach behind the house. Mama Roosevelt’s home, where FDR grew up, is no longer there and most of the mansions and grand hotels have gone. However you can hike in parks and take sea cruises to whale watch. Change to Canadian money before you arrive on the island. There is no bank and the day we were there the sole ATM that took American cards was out of cash.

You should know: these photos are my property. If you are interested in reusing one, do get in touch.  My stay on Campobello Island was partially underwritten by the New Brunswick Tourism office. The book title is linked to Amazon for your convenience. If you click through to Amazon and purchase anything at all, I get a few cents which helps support A Traveler’s Library. Thanks.

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The Dutch House, New Castle, Delaware (early 1700's)

Destination: Colonial Delaware

Book: Flesh and Grass by Libby Cone (Self published via Smashwords and available on all forms of electronic media)

I read Libby Cone‘s first historic novel, War on the Margins, about the German occupation of British Channel islands and enjoyed it very much. In the newer book, she’s writing  on her own without a graduate committee looking over her shoulder, and apparently without a caring editor. Too bad, because I am fascinated by the Dutch history on the East Coast of America, and loved visiting the old town of New Castle Delaware on a road trip to the Brandywine Valley. This book left me wishing I had not even started it, but it did stir up memories of a  trip to historic America.

In brief, Flesh and Grass tells the story of a colony of Mennonites, sponsored by the Dutch West Indies Company, come to America for religious freedom in 1662.  Their small, hard-working colony is abandoned by the Company, whose officers are much more interested in the sugar and slave trade of the Caribbean. Then the community becomes a pawn in Holland’s wars with England and France. Their community is burned out over and over again, attacked by pirates who steal their goods, and they dwindle in numbers. The narrator finally moves inland to Pennsylvania in 1693 after Zwaanendael (Dutch) becomes Lewes (English).

Although or maybe because it is thoroughly researched, the story sinks under the daily drudgery of life in this ill-fated colony.  I disagree with several of the writer’s choices.

• First, she tells the story journal style in the voice of a blind man, thus sacrificing physical descriptions except when he asks people to describe things to him. All tell and no show.
• Second, she uses the Dutch spelling, forms of address, and a stilted speech throughout the entire book. More skilled writers introduce that type of speech, but then lay it aside so that readers do not have to hack their way through a jungle of unfamiliar usages.
• Third, she recounts life in the colony incident by incident, with no overarching narrative curve. Instead of plot, we get plod.  Although exciting and interesting things happen to the people here, the prose presents them all in the same tone–no build-up, no suspense.

It pains me to write such a negative review because I think that Libby Cone could do better. I KNOW she could do better because I read her other book, and the reader will be better served to read War on the Margins.

But don’t lose interest in this very interesting part of American history, and if you have a chance, definitely visit the historic gems of  New Castle  and  Lewes, Delaware which was the main site of Flesh and Grass. Lewes, calls itself “the first town in the first state.” (Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.) First called Zwaanendael by the Dutch, Cone uses that name and Hoornkill interchangeably. But the Lewes museum site says the proper name was Whore Kill–Harlot’s Creek.  The Museum site also says the town was founded in 1631, while this book apparently starts with the founders sailing from Amsterdam in 1662.

New Castle Armory and cobblestone Street

We did not get to Lewes, farther South, but we did visit New Castle, an easy detour from a Brandywine Valley road trip.  The Old Armory pictured above housed a restaurant, where we enjoyed a nice lunch in a building that felt like an authentic old tavern of the 1800′s. According to their Facebook page, it is now closed. Too bad, I loved the solid building with colonial columns in front, surrounded by a park-like swath of grass and fronting on that very bumpy street.  The streets throughout the center of town are the rough cobblestone you see in that picture. (You can still eat at historic Jessop’s Tavern on the main shopping street.)

Walk through the business district, and everything looks preserved from colonial days, with the exception of “The oldest house in Delaware”, The  Dutch House, maintained by the New Castle Historic Society.

Entrance to The Dutch House 

As he sometimes does when we travel, Ken took a break and sat on a shaded bench in Battery park, looking out on the Bay while I went through the  Read House and Gardens (1801), home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Read House parlor, New Castle Delaware

We both visited the Dutch House (pictured at top of page), which has gone through many upgrades over the years, and was once much rougher, probably with a thatched roof in its original early 18th century version. The Historic Society, with financing from a member of the ubiquitous Delaware du Pont family, has recreated the interior as it would have been in the early 1700′s with odd tools and kitchen utensils.

Besides Battery park, which stretches for many blocks along the water, the townspeople can gather in the original town square for relaxation.  We found the whole town relaxing–after walking these streets for a while, you might be surprised when the ring of a cell phone or hum of a car motor jars you back to the present. But how interesting to think of those earnest settlers who came here from Holland, asking only to be able to support themselves and worship as they wished.

These photos are all the property of Vera Marie Badertscher. If that one of the Armory looks a bit like a car ad, it accompanied an article I wrote for Automotive Traveler  , an on-line magazine, about our road trip in a Chevy HHR loaned to us by General Motors. We liked the loaner car so much that when we got home, we bought one for ourselves.

The book title is linked to Amazon for your convenience. If you click through to Amazon and purchase anything at all, I get a few cents which helps support A Traveler’s Library. Thanks.

What’s your favorite historic America site? Have you visited the historic towns of Delaware? I would like to know more about Lewes, if you have been there.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destination: The Western United States

Book: Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West–One Meal at a Time by Stephen Fried (2010–New paperback edition in 2011)

The reader gets more than his/her money’s worth with the fascinating book, Appetite for America. A biography, a history of the western expansion of tourism in the early 20th century, an analysis of a unique business model, a travel guide for nostalgia buffs, a railroad book for “trainiacs,” AND recipes from the Fred Harvey kitchens–all told in amusing and highly readable style by Stephen Fried.

Santa Fe locomotive

I have always been fascinated with the story of the influence of  the Santa Fe railroad and Fred Harvey hotels and restaurants on the growth of tourism in the Western U.S. After all, I know that because the Santa Fe promoted the West as a destination of natural beauty, they were largely responsible for our National Park system. Likewise, they promoted Indian arts and built a market for potters and basket makers. This book reveals that the story is even more interesting than I imagined.

La Posada Hotel

Ken and I recently took a road trip to one of the few Fred Harvey establishments being refurbished to its original, classy style. Mary Jane Colter designed La Posada in drab little Winslow, Arizona. (Ironically, when we last spent a night in Winslow–in the mid 1960′s–Winslow was thriving, but La Posada was a wreck.) Colter, probably the highest ranking woman in any company in the country in her day, worked for Fred Harvey for more than 30 years, starting with the company Indian store in Albuquerque, and moving on to designing buildings at the Grand Canyon, interiors and even dinnerware.But La Posada is her masterpiece, and we are fortunate that loving hands are bringing it back to life.

The Santa Fe railroad won the railroad jousting match to dominate the routes from Chicago to Los Angeles, back in the day when railroad travel was the most modern and classiest mode of transportation and competition between lines was cut-throat.

Did you know that before the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, each railroad had its own station, and separate ticket office? There were no “Grand Centrals” or “Union Station.”  Did you know that each city declared its own time until the growth of railroads demanded standardized time zones in the United States? A meeting of representatives of the major railroads determined the four time zones we still have and clocks were reset on November 18, 1883.

It is this kind of reportage of detail that keeps Appetite for America fascinating throughout. That, and the fact that Fred Harvey is the kind of character that biographers dream of. He had a virtual rags to riches story, and left reams of notebooks, lists, letters and memorabilia scattered across the country. (Fried helpfully lists all the places that you can find the memorabilia today.)

Contemporary Harvey Girl serves our Anniversary dessert

From selling railroad tickets and newspaper advertising, Harvey progressed to building an empire that bore his name. And it was JUST his name–no “company”, or “and sons” or any other qualifiers. Even after he died, the sons and grandsons continued to run Fred Harvey, the business. Harvey’s dedication to high quality meant he dictated the exact uniform of each “Harvey Girl” who served food; he would not tolerate variance in the way coffee was made or cutlery arranged, and his company execs had apoplexy if someone reported that their olive oil was not as good as another eatery. When he paid a surprise visit to a restaurant, if the silverware was not properly aligned, he would yank the white linen (imported) tablecloth off the table to make a point.

The size of his empire is indicated by a statement that when the price of coffee (they used only Chase  & Sanborn) went up two cents a pound, “That’s going to set us back five thousand dollars, just about.”…”We’re using twenty-five thousand pounds a month or more.”

I could go on with more great stuff from this book, but I’ve already talked enough. Just go add the book to your Traveler’s Library, and make your travel plans to visit La Posada Hotel or restaurant in Winslow on your way to the Grand Canyon and the great old Harvey Hotel, the El Tovar. According to Fried you can still visit 22 of the original 155 Fred Harvey establishments to dine or stay overnight, but the Fred Harvey company collapsed when automobiles replaced railroads in dominance of American transportation.

My heartfelt thanks to Random House for sending me this Bantam book for review.  The La Posada and Harvey Girl pictures are mine, the Santa Fe locomotive comes from Flickr with a Creative Commons license, and the back book cover is from Stephen Fried’s web site.

Hardback edition, back cover jacket

The book title is linked to Amazon for your convenience. If you click through to Amazon and purchase anything at all, I get a few cents which helps support A Traveler’s Library. Thanks.

P.S. If you are tempted to find a copy of the movie, The Harvey Girls, with Judy Garland–DON’T. Trust me on this one. I suffered through it so you won’t have to. Besides, the one good number in the movie, The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, gets thoroughly stuck in your head and you won’t get it out for days.

REMEMBER: Win a Book About African Wildlife Photography. THIS WEEK ONLY.

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Running on the Map

The Great American Road Trip: A directory

Are you planning a Road Trip? Here’s a state-by-state directory of the travel literature and travel movies we have recommended in the past 14 months, as we crossed the country on the Great American Road Trip. Find each one by plugging info into the search box on the far right.

Road Trip Across America from West to East

Hawaii: Shark Dialogues (novel) by Kiana Davenport, guest post by Kris Bordessa

♥Southern California: Farewell My Lovely (classic mystery) by Raymond Chandler

Northern California: Cannery Row (classic novel) by John Steinbeck

Nevada: Charlie Varrick (Movie) (bank heist movie)

Oregon: The Heart of the Beast (novel) by Joyce Weatherford

Alaska: Insomnia (movie thriller)

Washington: The Baker Brothers (comedy movie)Guest post by Beth Whitman

Idaho: Five Skies (novel) by Ron Carlson

Montana: The Way West (classic historic novel) by A. B. (Bud) Guthrie

Wyoming: Come Again No More (novel) by Jack Todd

Colorado: Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid (western movie)

Utah: The Mountain Between Us (novel) by Charles Martin

Arizona: Going Back to Bisbee (memoir) by Robert Shelton

New Mexico: The Guardians (novel) by Ana Castillo, My Town (novel) by Margaret Randall and Po’pay (history) ed. by Joe S. Sando and Herman Agoyo

Texas: The Last Picture Show (novel), Lonesome Dove (western novel, TV series)by Larry McMurtry. Guest post by Ruth Pennebaker

Oklahoma: Mountain Windsong (mystery novel) by Robert J. Conley

Kansas: In Cold Blood (classic non-fiction crime novel and movie) by Truman Capote

♥Nebraska: My Antonia (classic historic fiction)by Willa Cather

South Dakota: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (children’s book) by L. Frank Baum , a guest post by Kristen Gough

*North Dakota: Movie: Fargo (detective movie ), a guest post by Sam Lowe

Iowa: Movie: Field of Dreams (movie)

Minnesota: Vermillion Drift (mystery novel) by William Kent Krueger

Wisconsin: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (novel) by David Wroblewski

Michigan: Thank You, Mr. Falker (children’s book) by Patricia Polacco and Weird Michigan (humor, guidebook) by Linda S. Godfrey, a guest post by Kristen Gough

♥Ohio: The Thurber Carnival (classic humor collection) by James Thurber

The Great Lakes region: The Third Coast: Sailors, Strippers, Fishermen, Folksingers, Long-Haired Ojibway Painters, and God-Save-the-Queen Monarchists of the GREAT LAKES (non-fiction travelogue) by Ted McClelland

Indiana: Movie – Hoosiers (Movie drama)

Illinois: The Book of Ruth (novel) by Jane Hamilton

Missouri: Puddin’head Wilson (clasic novel) by Mark Twain

Arkansas: Farther Along (novel)by Donald Harington

Louisiana: A Free Man of Color (historic mystery novel) by Barbara Hambly

Mississippi: The author William Faulkner (classic American novelist), guest post by Paul Kaser

Alabama: Gods in Alabama (humor, novel) by Joshilyn Jackson

*Florida: Nature Girl (mystery novel) by Carl Hiaasen

Georgia: A Man in Full (novel) by Tom Wolfe

South Carolina: Bull’s Island (mystery novel) by Dorothea  Benton Frank, a guest post by Margo Millure

*North Carolina: The Last Child (thriller novel)by John Hart

Tennessee: Movie – Nashville (classic movie)

Kentucky: No Heroes (novel) by Chris Offutt

*West Virginia: Movie – October Sky (drama)

Virginia: Sister Jane’s Foxhunting Books by Rita Mae Brown and Mrs. Murphy Mysteries by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown, (all mystery novels) a guest post by Paula Price

Maryland: Chesapeake Blue (romance novel) by Nora Roberts

Delaware: The Du Ponts: Houses and Gardens in the Brandywine 1900-1951 (non-fiction) by Maggie Lidz

♥New Jersey: Independence Day (novel, also movie) by Richard Ford

♥Pennsylvania: An American Childhood (memoir) by Annie Dillard

*Northern New York (Buffalo): City on the Edge (non fiction)by Mark Goldman

New York City: Charming Billy (novel) by Alice McDermott

Rhode Island: We’re There Rhode Island (children’s book) by Elizabeth S. Grumbach

New Hampshire: The Good, Good Pig (memoir)by Sy Montgomery

*Maine: The Lobster Chronicles (memoir)by Linda Greenlaw

Vermont: South of the N.E. Kingdom (memoir) by David Mamet

Connecticut: Ice Storm (Movie drama)

♥Massachusetts: Dogtown (non-fiction) by Elyssa East

♥*Kickoff of Road Trip: Blue Highways (road trip memoir) by William Least Heat-Moon

*The asterisk indicates the most popular posts from the Great American Road Trip. (An imperfect measure, since the ones at the bottom of the list have been around longer and have therefore had more opportunity to gain readers.)

♥Indicates my personal favorites

Don’t forget that for each stop on our road trip, Music Road supplied musical background. Take a jaunt over there and check out some of her great suggestions. Kerry has a beautifully written and useful blog, and I encourage you to check it out.

If you have a friend who could use this list, please let them know about it with the easy share buttons below. THANKS!

What was your favorite Road Trip post? Your own state or someone else’s? Where should A Traveler’s Library go next? I’m always open to suggestions.

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Hawaii Path, Kalopa State Park

Destination: Hawaii

Book: The Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport

A GUEST POST BY Kris Bordessa

Try as you might, when you plug a mainland address into Mapquest with an address ending on any of the Hawaiian Islands, you’ll get a message saying that they can’t find a suitable vehicular route. Very true. And yet, how can America’s 50^th state be left out of the road trip fun here at A Traveler’s Library?

♦NOTE: As with every state we have visited, Music Road provides the musical accompaniment. This time Kerry had a little help from Kris Bordessa’s son, a  musician in Hawaii. ♦

Hawaii’s the only place in the good old U S of A where you can catch views of red-hot lava flows and snow-capped peaks all in the same day. Suffice it to say that once you’ve made it to the islands, there’s plenty of road trippin’ to be had.

Hawaii is really two different places. For visitors, it’s very often a place to get away from it all. It’s hammocks and beaches and pink umbrella drinks. Hawaii is a fabulous vacation destination, but the nuances of the island are often lost on travelers with a limited time to spend here. They’ll get a kick out of the big Hawaiian guy flashing a shaka and chattering in Pidgin, usually incomprehensible to the uninitiated.

Hawaii Sunrise by Kris Bordessa

They’ll ooh and ahh over glorious sunsets

and run their toes through the sand,

Kaunaoa Beach at Mauna Kea

and they’ll be charmed by Hawaiian tunes plucked out on the ‘ukulele.

But beneath these visible elements of the islands runs a deep rhythm, a rhythm that often goes unheard by visitors intent on not missing a thing. The other Hawaii, the true Hawaii, has a rich cultural history. From the first human inhabitants of the island through an embarrassing overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the United States of America and the modernization of the most remote islands in the world, Hawaiian mythology has been a constant.

In Shark Dialogues, author Kiana Davenport offers readers a chance to discover the low drumbeat of rhythm that is Hawaii. While fictional, the novel depicts Hawaii’s history from the first missionaries to the modern era while presenting the stories of several generations of powerful Hawaiian women. Pono, family matriarch, kahuna, and central character in the book, laments the fact that her offspring have left tradition behind, marrying non-Hawaiians and scattering across the globe. When her four granddaughters converge on the Big Island, they discover family ties and a compelling connection with their island home.

Finally, she sat down with them, shoveling food between her great nicotine-stained teeth. Only then did Pono visibly relax. And in that magisterial repose, a signal: the other four relaxed, looked round the place, its windswept lanai. Only then did they glimpse the orchards, fields of “Kona snow” billowing out toward cliffs and far below the sea. Only then did they feel the ocean in water-haunted sunlight that lay across each room, making objects shiver. And only then did each woman feel impervious to the outside world, as the house closed round them.

With interwoven story lines, this saga explores the passion and heartbreak of relationships from the leper colony at Kalaupapa to the Yazuka, an organized crime ring in Japan, all the while paying homage to the mysticism of Hawaii. The book’s honest portrayal of the culture and diversity of the islands is an invitation to discover the heart of Hawaii.

If you’re planning a trip to Hawaii – or just dreaming of one – Shark Dialogues is a must-read. Peppered with Hawaiian language (a helpful glossary at the back of the book) and place names, the book wraps readers in an island breeze and submerges them in the blue Pacific. Listen closely and you might even hear that oft-missed rhythmic drumbeat of the islands.

Kris Bordessa

Kris Bordessa, an author and features writer, lives on the Big Island of Hawaii where she is working – day by day –  toward a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

THANKS, KRIS! Sounds like a great book!

Ken and I once took a road trip through Kauai  in a bright red convertible. It was so appropriate for that colorful and fun place. AND, we stayed in the hotel where Elvis filmed Blue Hawaii. (No longer in operation, I’m sorry to say). But for now, I’ll just watch the new Hawaii Five-O. The opening credits scenery is worth watching!

Next Wednesday, I’ll say a proper farewell to The Great American Road Trip, but for now, let’s concentrate on Hawaii. What’s your favorite island? Been there? Or just dreaming?

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Original 1943 paper back cover

Destination: Los Angeles, California

Book: Farewell My Lovely (1939) by Raymond Chandler

I had not read the hard boiled detective stories for quite a while, and I had forgotten what fun Raymond Chandler can be.  I had also forgotten how openly racist and sexist was the society that he wrote about.

Some people will take offense at the terms his characters use and the assumptions they make about–for example–African Americans, American Indians, Japanese gardeners and blond millionairesses.

Although most people still accept those sexist descriptions of blonds– “Dames lie about anything. Just for practice,” says an L.A. cop– the other prejudices are out of bounds these days.

If the language upsets you, read about P.I. Philip Marlowe’s adventures in a bowdlerized edition–there are plenty–instead of the Library of America edition that I read. Me, I take this novel as an anthropology lesson.  It reflects the way a certain class of people in L.A. thought and talked in 1939.

Interestingly, detective Philip Marlowe talks in standard English and seems to know his way around classic literature.  If he had not wound up as a tough private eye–a shamus–a dick–he would fit nicely behind a podium at a small liberal arts college.

I am drawn to Chandler more by the language than the twisty plots.  There are plenty of 72-year-old slang words that I don’t understand, but Marlowe/Chandler’s quips keep me laughing.

Tarantula, without cake

Chandler excels at drawing word portraits. Here’s part of his first page description of a key character in Farewell My Lovely, Moose Malloy, who “..looked about as inconspicious as a tarantula on a piece of angel food.”

(Chandler likes to use negative metaphors. Later in the story he describes a house as not very impressive. No bigger than Buckingham Palace and with fewer windows than the Chrysler Building. For more about his use of metaphors, and a plot summary of Farewell My Lovely, see this article by one of Chandler’s biographers.)

He goes on about Moose Malloy:

“He was a big man, but not more than six feet five inches tall and not wider than a beer truck…” “His skin was pale and he needed a shave.  He would always need a shave.  He had curly black hair and heavy eyebrows that almost met over his thick nose. His ears were small and neat for a man of that size and his eyes had a shine close to tears that gray eyes often seem to have.”

Not only has Chandler presented a case study in how to write a description, he has accomplished a secondary aim by letting us see how observant Phillip Marlowe is.  Neither Chandler nor Marlowe miss a trick.  And this is just the first page.

Once you have read Chandler, you will have a sense of deja vu when you take a road trip to Los Angeles. Not the freeways, but the streets and neighborhoods beneath and around the network of high speed. Piling up details of place, Chandler’s usually clipped sentences become an urban sprawl leading us into the heart of the city and its suburbs. You’ll have to read those for yourself, because one paragraph would use up this entire post.

Handy for marking your favorite lines

Here are a few more choice bits I marked with my Book Darts (a discovery my books, my library and I are most grateful for. And they are not paying me to say that):

She fell softly across my lap and I bent down over her face and began to browse on it.

A run-down room:

A couple of frayed lamps with once gaudy shades that were now as gray as superannuated streetwalkers.

And in a very different house:

It was the kind of a room where people sit with their feet in their lap and sip absinthe through lumps of sugar and talk with high affected voices and sometimes just squeak.

Marlowe’s erudition shows when he gets a call from a potential client and the detective asks if the job is honest:

The voice grew icicles. “I should not have called you, if it were not.’” [On hearing that, Marlowe thinks] Harvard boy. Nice use of the subjunctive mood. The end of my foot itched but my bank account was still trying to crawl under a duck.

Take heart, baby boomers, although Chandler wrote for a living most of his life, and cranked out dozens and dozens of pulp magazine mysteries, Farewell My Lovely was his first novel and he was 50 years old when it was published.

Hollywood liked Chandler, who along with Dashiell Hammett fueled the film noir explosion in the 40s and 50s.  I watched the remake of Farewell My Lovely (1974)starring Robert Mitchum with a brief appearance by a young studly Sylvester Stallone. I’m here to warn you. Don’t bother. Mitchum should have been right for the role, but the script is so bad that he can’t escape sinking with the rest. The credits and the background music are attractive and it’s downhill from there on, mostly because the movie dropped not just scenes, but key intentions and key characters from Chandler’s novel.

Just one example. A phony psychic in the film (male) becomes a tough dyke Madame in the film–probably to give the film makers a chance to have a lot of full frontal nudity parading around. And although they don’t shy away form using “shine” and the more offensive “n” word to refer to blacks, the movie changes the hilarious Hollywood Indian character of the novel into…a cowboy. Huh?? And Marlowe doesn’t even figure out the crime. Sorry, that’s three examples, but I could talk forever about how bad this movie is. So I’d better move on and go look for a copy of the 1944 version starring Dick Powell and called Murder My Sweet. Synopses seem to indicate it sticks closer to the novel.

Trivia: William Faulkner adapted Chandler’s The Big Sleep for the screen, and allegedly didn’t understand the novel. It was saved by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

I wish I were in L.A. April 23. I’d take the Esotouric Tour of Raymond Chandler’s L.A. I keep getting the company emails and they have a brilliant collection of off beat bus tours. (And they are not paying me to say that. Darn!)

By the way, Roger Ebert really, really liked the Mitchum movie, as did the general run of the mill reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.  I have the feeling none of them had read Chandler.

And I should mention that Kerry Dexter of Music Road, my faithful companion on this road trip has popped a CD of a singer with bluegrass roots– who uses a bit of jazz and Celtic music as well–into the player. I’m sure its nice, but I’ll be ejecting it when Kerry stops for a burger. I’d prefer Cool Jazz for my Noir mood L.A.

Have detective novels and film noir shaped your view of L.A.? Have you seen or read Farewell My Lovely?

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