IN THE SUMMER OF 1849 there was in California one J. Ross Browne representing the United States Postal Service. In the course of his official duties he made a trip by "mule power and foot power" from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo. The tale of this trip is authentic, unusual Californian: the narrative combines the outlandish happenings of the journey-including a brush with outlaws, and a death battle between a bull and a huge bear-with a reporter's...

"Bird Cloud" is the name the author gave to 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands and prairie and four hundred foot cliffs plunging down to the North Platte River. On the day she first visited, a cloud in the shape of a bird hung in the evening sky. She also saw pelicans, bald eagles, golden eagles, great blue herons, ravens, scores of bluebirds, harriers, kestrels, elk, deer and a dozen antelope. She fell in love with the land, then owned by the Nature Conservancy,...

Tom Bodett takes viewers through the routes used by the pioneers, mountain men, and gold hunters who worked and settled the American frontier, from New England's Old Post Road to the Natchez Trace and on to the Yukon Gold Rush Trail visiting historical landmarks along the way.

Embark on a month-long expedition to explore stunning coral reefs, shallow water environments, and rare species in America's newest marine sanctuary, Papahanamokuakea Marine National Monument.

In March 1940, the author John Stienbeck and his friend, marine biologist Ed Ricketts, sailed down the coast of California and Mexico to the Sea of Cortez. Their stated purpose was to document the creatures that inhabit shallow waters and tide pools on the margins of the Sea of Cortez. But it became much more. In these mysterious, phosphorescent waters, they sought an understanding of mankind's relationship to the natural world, and a wellspring of...

"REVOLUTIONARY ROADS takes readers on a time-traveling adventure through the crucial places American independence was won and might have been lost. You'll ride shotgun with Bob Thompson as he puts more than 20,000 miles on his car, not to mention his legs; walks history-shaping battlefields from Georgia to Quebec; and hangs out with passionate lovers of revolutionary history whose vivid storytelling and deep knowledge of their subject enrich his own....