Scottish-born naturalist and writer John Muir undertook a daring adventure in 1867, just a few years after the Civil War. After recovering from an injury at a saw mill, Muir decided that he wanted to explore the world. He left his life in Indiana and walked one thousand miles to Florida. Without any real direction or purpose other than to study the flora and fauna, Muir trekked south through Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida...

"An essential, surprising journey through the history, rituals, and landscapes of the American South--and a revelatory argument for why you must understand the South in order to understand America"--

It has been a while since seven-year-old Dolly's dad has spent time with her, just the two of them, so when he scoops her up and promises to take her on the adventure of a lifetime, Dolly is thrilled. The first days on the road are incredibly exciting. But as they travel farther south, into a country Dolly no longer recognizes, her dad's behavior grows increasingly erratic. The adventure isn't fun anymore, but home has never been so far away. --adapted...

"Rarely does a nonfiction work come along that is as original and refreshing as Sitting Up with the Dead. Here, take a ride with Pamela Petro as she embarks on a series of road trips through the states of the Old South to collect its stories and meet its tellers of traditional tales. Stories provide the connective tissue of the South, linking the past with the present. They join communities as widespread as the coastal plains of the Carolinas and...

Colonial Period, Tidewater Westward: Disk 3, of the series, begins in Jamestown where the first permanent English Colony was established in 1607. The bicycle rides then follow the travels of George Washington from his boyhood home in Fredericksburg to Winchester, Virginia. Just north of there, along the Potomac River, the activities at Fort Frederick reveal what life was like in earlier times. The trail then leads back to Williamsburg, near Jamestown....

"The author retraces Frederick Law Olmsted's journey across the American South in the 1850s, on the eve of the Civil War. Olmsted roamed eleven states and six thousand miles, and the New York Times published his dispatches about slavery and its defenders. More than 150 years later, Tony Horwitz followed Olmsted's route, and whenever possible his mode of transport--rail, riverboats, in the saddle--through Appalachia, down the Ohio and Mississippi,...

"One of the most acclaimed travel writers of our time turns his unflinching eye on an American South too often overlooked. Paul Theroux has spent fifty years crossing the globe, adventuring in the exotic, seeking the rich history and folklore of the far away. Now, for the first time, in his tenth travel book, Theroux explores a piece of America--the Deep South. He finds there a paradoxical place, full of incomparable music, unparalleled cuisine, and...