Backroads Of The Great American West

Backroads of the Great American West describes and details with full-color photos and maps the most scenic routes in the Rocky Mountains, Texas, Desert Southwest, California, and Pacific Northwest.

Get off the beaten path and explore the hidden-gem destinations within a few hours of the Mother Road! Includes numerous photos and illustrations. Known as the Main Street of America and the Mother Road, US Route 66 is the nation’s best-known highway. This lavishly illustrated book steers you from Chicago to Los Angeles, traveling through the lowlands of the American Plains and the high plateaus of New Mexico and Arizona, from the Great Lakes to the mighty Pacific Ocean, and through major metropolises and remote country towns. Best of all, it lets you branch away from the Mother Road and encounter gems hidden beyond today’s standard motels and tourist traps—the quaint frontier communities that date back to the nation’s westward expansion; the legacy of ancient native cultures; and the awe-inspiring natural wonders that have graced these lands since time immemorial. State parks, wildlife refuges, museums, historic sites, literary landmarks, and much more are there to be explored within a few hours’ drive from the path of Route 66. The fifty trips included here offer new travel opportunities for the thousands of road-trippers who follow this legendary route, looking for something more. “The road and this book recall a time before franchise restaurants and chain motels choked America’s highways . . . the guide consists of 50 driving tours, which include plenty of side trips.” —Arizona Republic

Texas has hill country? Who knew? Well, the Lonely Planet guide to Texas, which calls the Hill Country “rightfully one of the state’s biggest tourist draws . . . an area of gently rolling hills and valleys freckled with cacti and cattle ranches, lined with rivers and dotted with peaceful, picturesque little towns.” And any self-respecting Texan might know as much. Forty miles west of Austin and fifty north of San Antonio, the Hill Country is within an easy drive of two of the state’s biggest cities, putting back-country quiet and beauty within reach of countless urban dwellers seeking respite. This book brings the remarkable Hill Country of Texas home to the back roads traveler. Whether it’s wildflowers you’re drawn to, or dude ranches, natural areas, historic sites, or quaint Texas towns redolent of history, this is your passport to an experience like no other. Backroads of the Texas Hill Country introduces travelers and armchair tourists alike to the emerging wine country of the Lone Star State, the meticulously preserved culture of East European immigrants, the “cowboy capital of the world” (Bandera), and the childhood home of LBJ at Johnson City. Follow this irresistible guide into the Hill Country, and find yourself deep in the heart of Texas.

Like the United States, Mexico is a country of profound cultural differences. In the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20), these differences became the subject of intense government attention as the Republic of Mexico developed ambitious social and educational policies designed to integrate its multitude of ethnic cultures into a national community of democratic citizens. To the north, Americans were beginning to confront their own legacy of racial injustice, embarking on the path that, three decades later, led to the destruction of Jim Crow. Backroads Pragmatists is the first book to show the transnational cross-fertilization between these two movements. In molding Mexico's ambitious social experiment, postrevolutionary reformers adopted pragmatism from John Dewey and cultural relativism from Franz Boas, which, in turn, profoundly shaped some of the critical intellectual figures in the Mexican American civil rights movement. The Americans Ruben Flores follows studied Mexico's integration theories and applied them to America's own problem, holding Mexico up as a model of cultural fusion. These American reformers made the American West their laboratory in endeavors that included educator George I. Sanchez's attempts to transform New Mexico's government agencies, the rural education campaigns that psychologist Loyd Tireman adapted from the Mexican ministry of education, and anthropologist Ralph L. Beals's use of applied Mexican anthropology in the U.S. federal courts to transform segregation policy in southern California. Through deep archival research and ambitious synthesis, Backroads Pragmatists illuminates how nation-building in postrevolutionary Mexico unmistakably influenced the civil rights movement and democratic politics in the United States. Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University.

Experience the hidden byways of America's prairies, steppes, and grasslands through the unerring eye of landscape photographer and educator David Skernick. Covering Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, these unforgettable panoramic images place the viewer directly into our country's vast interior, containing wild bison, longhorn cattle, freight trains, abandoned homesteads, and agricultural patterns with startling geometries. The journey also passes through parts of the iconic Route 66 that most travelers never see. Skernick, who leads photography workshops nationwide, lets us in on his camera strategies, with an appendix listing exposure, equipment, and panorama statistics for each image--enough to satisfy even the most technology-minded photographer.

"As Jon Krakauer did with Into the Wild, Blehm turns a missing-man riddle into an insightful meditation on wilderness and the personal demons and angels that propel us into it alone.” — Outside magazine Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada—mountains as perilous as they are beautiful. Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.

The face of Arizona has changed dramatically over the centuries-but for those who know where to look, the coyote still howls, waterfalls still tumble into deep red rock canyons, and some of nature's finest handiwork is still to be seen along the backroads and byways of the state. For the open-road adventurer or the armchair tourist, Backroads of Arizona is the ideal guide to the state where antelope still roam, cowboys still ride the range, and mail is still delivered by mule train. Jim Hinckley's informative text and Kerrick James' brilliant color photography reveal the Grand Canyon State as more than just desert and towering saguaros: It is a powerful land of compelling variety where a mere sixty-mile drive can transport you from scorching sands to dense evergreen stands where deer and elk roam. Continuing on Voyageur Press' successful travel series, Backroads of Arizona takes you on more than twenty trips to the state's most notable and underappreciated sites. The book covers Arizona's plethora of awe-inspiring natural areas and national parks as well as its many historic sites, including Native American Pueblos and ancient ruins, ghost towns and vestiges of the Old West, and more. It is a fitting celebration of one of the most scenic states in the country.

Discover the strange, sublime, and breathtaking sights of Texas with this illustrated guide featuring thirty backroad excursions. The second largest state in America, Texas is home to a vast array of hidden treasures waiting just off the beaten path. Backroads of Texas guides readers to intriguing sites, offbeat characters, and glorious landscapes that are typically missed by interstate travelers. Watch frenzied bats as they fly by the thousands from San Angelo’s Foster Road Bridge. Catch your breath as you drink in the majestic Guadalupe Mountains. Get ready for goosebumps when you spelunk into the shadowy depths of Inner Space Cavern. And try not to get spooked when you see the paranormal “ghost lights” near the eclectic town of Marfa. These off-road sights are what truly set the Lone Star State apart from its neighbors. Completely reimagined for a new generation of road-trip takers and explorers, Backroads of Texas is lavishly illustrated with photographs, maps, and vintage advertising of Texas’s many scenic, historic, and cultural attractions.