While I’m on vacation I’ve always tried to find books which tell the history of the region. I remember a trip to Yosemite in 1983 when I stayed overnight in a little town called El Portal, just outside the western entrance to the park. My motel room fronted on the Merced River, which made a nice burbling noise while I read The World Rushed In. It tells the story of the Gold Rush experience through the diary of a man who came from Ohio to get rich, failed (as did most), but made it back home.
I’ve done the same thing in upstate Washington, where I bought a book called Sternwheels on the Yukon, a story of freighting on the Yukon in the 1930s. The author was a crewman on some of those boats. Here’s a recounting of the river experience via canoe from ten years ago.
While driving around New Mexico, I picked up Stranger in New Mexico: A Doctor’s Journey, 1951-1986. This was a little more current than I’d hoped to find, but seemed like everything else in that bookstore was related to Billy the Kid or the Lincoln County War or both.
Anybody else buy books to suit their vacations?
No, but I was just wondering why so many people read romance novels while on vacation.
These “romantic interludes” are usually short lived, and then all you have to remember someone by is a vaginal infection of some sort.
At least that is what people tell me.
I, for one, would never do such a thing.. ;^}
I don’t really get on vacations that take me anywhere far from home – unless I go home to MI. I do however take a big interest in learning about my home – both Portland and the places I lived in MI. I have several great books about the Great Lakes region and have gotten several about the area I am in now and especialy Portland which has a very intruiging history – especialy when you take into account what a “liberal” town Portland is now. Believe me when I say, it wasn’t always this way. One of the things I love about Portland is that local public radio has a daily show about local history.
That said, it is likely that I will do just that when I actually get to the point where I can afford to take vacations. Between finances and just having the time, I imagine it will be a few more years. I look forward to taking my, now, four year old to nifty places and learning a lot about them before we go and seeing the things we learned about before leaving – being rather free form and willing to let him make a lot of decisions this could make for soem rather interesting travels.