An extremely thorough listing of lakes and streams in Western Montana. A must-have if you are adventurous and tired of visiting the same lakes everyone else visits. This book gives you the location of the body of water by township/section numbers, directions for how to reach the trail or get closest to the lake, and what you'll find to catch once you get there. If you want to find the lakes which no other book mentions, some of which aren't even on the maps, this is your passport to many weekends of fine hiking and fishing. My dad had a 1970-something version of the same book which we used to explore the Jewel Basin. I just got this updated release this summer, and my kids and I love to find a lake in the book, locate its position on a map, and then go find it. Brings out the explorer in everyone. From my experiences, I've found the directional information to be very accurate, fishing information is good, but changes with each Montana winter. Enjoy the hunt!

This book offers fairly complete ride and trail assessments of some popular and not-so-popular trail rides, mainly in SouthCentral Alaska. Topo maps coincide with trail and ride descriptions, although they could show a bit more detail. There are not many books on the market on Alaska riding possibibilities, although there are some new Alaska web sites appearing, so having this book as a resource would be a good idea.

The architecture of Santa Fe is amazing. We wandered the back streets just enjoying the incredible forms it took. This book gave us the history of Santa Fe architecture, information about particular buildings, and made us feel like more than mere looky-loo tourists. Now, after the trip, I look at it to relive the beautiful sights! We burned out on shopping the first day and enjoying architecture provided us with exercise and entertainment! I definitely recommend the book -- I would have given it 5 stars, if it had had color photos!

It is so hard to bring history together to give you a feel of what is going on at a certain point in time. Bartlett bites off a hudge chunk (1776 - 1890) and does a better job than I could imagine of making you feel what the people of that time were experiencing.

Lowitt's book is a survey of New Deal legislation and how it pertains to the seventeen states comprising the American West. The book is arranged topically, rather than chronologically, which keeps specific subjects contained for easier study. By concentrating on the effects of legislation, Lowitt easily demonstrates how the New Deal changed the West, both immediately and long term (dammed rivers or farm subsidies, anyone?). He supplies the reader with enough information about the problems that plagued the region, so his explanations of how New Deal programs tackled those problems are quite clear. Lowitt's style is flowing, and this makes for an easy and engaging read. Although there are a few shortcomings, this book is a good survey, and is a valuable departure point for those interested in delving into the New Deal and its impact on the American West.

"New Mexican Lives"
Richard W. Etulain, Editor
ISBN 0-8263-2433-9

This book offers eleven chapters by different authors on various personalities in the history of what is now the state of New Mexico. The most interesting to me are about Tony Hillerman, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Pope and Wendell Chino.

Two of the least interesting chapters are about Billy the Kid and Kit Carson. Kathleen P. Chamberlain tells us that at least 250 books and hundreds of articles have been written about Billy the Kid, a part of a "search for a romantic old West that never existed." Barton H. Barbour describes the "powerful resonance" of Kit Carson's mythic life. In other words, the reputations of these men have as much to do with fiction as fact.

A lesser-known subject is Wendell Chino. Through Mr. Chino's leadership, the Mescalero Apaches have, perhaps, been the most successful tribe in New Mexico at becoming financially independent through the development of their gambling casino and Ski Apache resort area.

Pope was an Indian from San Juan Pueblo, who organized the revolt of 1680. Joe S. Sando, who wrote this chapter, describes this revolt as the original American revolution. It is difficult not too sympathize with the Pueblos in their rebellion against the Spanish conquerors who set about destroying everything these people held dear and exploiting them for Spain's purposes. Pope, it would appear, was a legitimate Indian hero.

Lois Palken Rudnick's chapter about Mabel Dodge Luhan is interesting. Luhan had already had several previous lives of wealth and glamour in Europe and New York prior to showing up in New Mexico. In 1918, she began an affair with Tony Lujan of Taos Pueblo, to whom she was ultimately married for thirty nine years. In Taos Pueblo, Luhan discovered a community that was a model of permanence and stability, where individual, social, artistic, and religious values were completely integrated in a way that she had not previously known. Ultimately, Luhan played a key role in promoting modern art in New Mexico and the work of people such as Andrew Dassburg, Ansel Adams, D. H. Lawrence, Georgia O'Keefe, and Frank Waters.

In the chapter on Tony Hillerman, Ferenc M. Szasz does a good job of characterizing the author's accomplishments. Hillerman, born in Oklahoma, has become a major New Mexico phenomenon as well as a literary voice for the Navajo and the American southwest in general. Szasz explains that Hillerman's themes in his sixteen novels include the following: the nuclear world and the cold war, southwestern anthropology and western history, Indian gaming, alcohol abuse, hantavirus, Indian education, and, in particular, the Navajo view of these things. Hillerman's writing, as it turns out, complements well the state's multi-million dollar tourism industry, said to employ 60,000 New Mexicans. It has been suggested that Hillerman's novels have brought more tourists to New Mexico than any other single source.

On the whole, for those interested in New Mexico, Richard Etulain has brought together some appealing reading.

Love this book...although there are many guides to Northern Cal, this one is an excellent one to reasonably priced lodging and restaurants. I use it to explore the region. The cover area is wide...from the North Coast to Lake Tahoe and to the Oregon border. I look forward to future editions.

Overall, a good book with good ideas for getaways. Provides 2-3 day excursions, usually themed according to either environment or activities. For instance, there's the predictable Zoo/Wild Animal Park adventure, but it also gives good ideas for trips into the mountains or desert, or even a horseback themed trip. I think the ideal couple who would enjoy this is those who are near enough to make frequent trips to San Diego, but don't necessarily live here (i.e. LA). Even though I live here, I think it will be good to get away for a few of these.

I try to make the most of this city (easy to do since we love it so much!), and this book has some good items that I wasn't aware of, particularly outside the typical San Diego/Coronado/Carlsbad descriptions found in many travel books.

For an overall sightseeing guide, one would do better with Fodor's or Fromme's, but this book has some good expanded-area info, as well as some "preassembled" trips, complete with lodging recommendations.

After borrowing three travel books from the local library, this Scenic Driving Hawaii book was far more complete than the others I read. Directions are easy to follow and look so thorough, I'm confident that this will be the BEST guide we can take along on our trip! The photos in the book are beautiful.... just wish there were more of them!

The only other thing that I think may be missing from the book are pronunciations of the towns in Maui. We are first-time visitors, and want to be familiar with the correct pronunciations.

The only thing I don't really like about this book is the categorization. It discusses Napoleon, then skips to the industrial revolution, but then comes back to Napoleon again and the Bourbon restoration. In my opinion, history books should follow the chronology of history, and include everything from one time period in one section.