Since I toured my first national park years ago, I've thought of becoming a National Park Service ranger. I toyed with the idea even so far as to go online and look at job openings and descriptions. I may have never applied, but I certainly gave it strong consideration. I mean, what would be so wrong with being outdoors all day, surrounded by beauty and wildlife, and occasionally giving directions to tourists excited to see where you live? Well, before I went any further, I'm glad I read An...

My talented sister-in-law finished the cover design for my book, The Drive North: A Swing Down Memory Lane. It is now with the publisher and the printing process will start once I see the final proof. One of the few things I wasn't able to do on my own, like the cover, was the synposis. I tried to squeeze what I wrote and rewrote in hundreds of pages down to a few paragraphs, but I couldn't do it. So, the publisher did and I wanted to share it with everyone here.

Some of the cover writin...

I purchased another book with my Christmas gift card in addition to Bill Bryson's African Diary. And just like it, I had also seen this one on the shelf at the book store several months ago. I passed on buying National Geographic's Complete National Parks of the United States at that time because it is more of a desk reference book, opposed to a guide I'd carry along with me on a hike. I'm glad I picked it up now, though, because it is one heck of a desk reference.

I have not yet read Co...

I had to do a lot of preparatory research before writing my book, The Drive North: A Swing Down Memory Lane. A lot of it was rather tedious and boring historical reading, something I thought I was over when I graduated from college, but there was an occasional gem that I really enjoyed. One of the books that helped me along the way was Lizards on the Mantel, Burros at the Door: A Big Bend Memoir by Etta Koch with June Cooper Price.

Etta Koch moved her family to the newly created Big Bend...

All of my present-day travels across the globe are grounded in those which I experienced with my family as a child. We drove everywhere - with the exception of one trip, if memory serves correctly - and it was always in the big, gray conversion van we nicknamed The Beast. I'm almost positive it ticked over 500,000 miles before my father sold it, and later found it abandoned, dead, alongside the road one afternoon. Well, to be upfront, I've been a bit homesick for those trips of late. I've t...

I've spent the better part of fifteen or sixteen months researching and writing a travel memoir, and now it's all on two little USB sticks on my desk. I still have a lot of editing to do, and things to change, but the better part of my first book is done and I couldn't be more happy. I'm pleased with the way the trip that I'm writing about went, as well as how I'm incorporating past travels into the story, and how it has come into being electronically. But now the hard part of fine tuning ...

A number of friends have told me that I need to write a book about my travels. They remind me of all the places I've seen, and encourage me to write a book about it all. So, after hearing enough of it, I've finally got the ball rolling and am about halfway through the story - something I've found to be much more difficult than I had initially anticipated.

I knew writing a book would be a lot of work, but you just pour so much of yourself into it that it's difficult not to fuss over every...

Before I travel, as I wrote previously, I like to get a bit of a perspective on a country. Normally I prefer to pick up a copy of a history book as I try to get a good feel of what a country has been through and how it's developed. I gave it a bit of thought preceding my trip to Rwanda and decided to go in a different direction as I was able to pick up enough of a historical background from the marvel of the Internet; I instead purchased a copy of Dian Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist.

Most...

There are so many historic trails in the United States that it's difficult to pick just one to study. The Lewis and Clark trail though holds a special place in the hearts of Americans, largely because it's the only one most of us have heard of, as we learned about it in grade school. To further my very limited grade school knowledge, I thought it'd be a good idea to pick up The Journals of Lewis and Clark and give it a go as there didn't seem to be a better way to learn about such a trip th...