Jane Hieb has done an excellent job researching this fair Midwestern town. I'll recommend this to anyone interested in this particular town's history, or anyone who might enjoy learning more about the hard work and sacrifices that everyday Americans face when trying to build a functioning community. Also, if you can get a hold of it, a must read is Jane Hieb's "Country Roads and Other Trecherous Paths." You may have to directly write the author to get a hold of it, but this hillarious collection of real life stories is well worth it. Some of the most enjoyable and heart warming non-fiction comes not from celebrities or politicians or New York Times bestselling authors but from hard working Americans who happen to have a great gift for writing. Get both of these books and you well surely treasure them.

This is an excellent guide to the conifers of the PNW. It is complete, unlike some of the other cards available which show a subset of the PNW's conifers. The format is well-thought out: excellent photos of needles and cones with highlighted descriptions of unique identifying features. It comes as a laminated tri-fold. I used the card on a hike down the CDT last summer, and found it most helpful.

This book has some of the nicest pictures I've seen of the waters below the surface in and near Puget Sound, and up into British Colombia.

If you liked Lilly, you'll love Emma! It's a wonderful book full of history. I've never been much for history until I started reading Ann Cullen's books . . . now I'm anxiously waiting for her next one. Living in Helena, it makes the town seem more "real" . . . you see houses and know who built them and first lived there. For those not living here, the book gives you a wonderful insight into the past. How lives were lived, companies started, travel, buildings, etc.

Salvatore M. Trento's works have revolutionary implications for the study of sacred sites. His theoretical approach is based on the idea that electromagnetic fields may influence the brain, and that many sites where inscriptions, standing stones, and stone chambers were located had aberrant magnetic fields. Trento hypothesizes that the "extreme geomagnetic flux associated with these locales" may stimulate "a cascade of pineal gland chemicals that altered cognition." Certainly the readings that Trento took at the sites presented in this book support this idea: they suggest that the locations of cave paintings and sacred sites were chosen as a result of these geomagnetic influences. His observations may have applications not only to the study of sacred sites such as are featured in this book, but paranormal phenomena such as UFOs, ghosts, and Mothman. I think that Trento, famed outer limits researcher John Keel, and anomalist Jim Brandon should all get together to see if they can come up with a grand unified theory of paranormal phenomena.

In connection with his idea that prior civilizations were more in touch with nature than we are, Trento reminds us that many of these places are sacred, and that we need to listen to them. They may have the keys to our continued survival on this planet. The guide thus becomes a means to once again restore our lost union with the earth: "To heal the spirit, if not the body," he writes, "we need to reconnect with our surroundings in ways that go beyond Earth Day celebrations and tree hugging. We must learn to feel what the planet is offering. But to do that we need to experience it firsthand." This book, then, reminds us, as did Emerson, that revelation is available to us all, and that "the sun shines today also," as it did for our ancestors. Perhaps it is not the sun shining that affects us, but rather geomagnetic forces flowing and ebbing. This is not, I admit, as poetic as Emerson's ideas, but it may be at the heart of our religious experiences in nature, and may indeed offer us a solution to the current ecological crisis.

Other places featured in this book are of interest not because of their impact upon the pineal gland or other biochemical systems, but merely because of their strangeness or grandeur: the fossil beds at Lompoc; the Calico Early Man site, which some say provides evidence that humanity was present in the Americas as early as 200,000 years ago; the locations of Bigfoot and sea serpent sightings; the pirate treasure of Neahkahnie Beach; the Sausalito Hum. My personal favorite is the Lava Beds National Monument, whose beauty and grandeur cannot be understated. Though the variety of topics found in this book might seem scattershot in its approach, in fact there are sufficient destinations here to satisfy a carful of people: anthropologists, archeologists, paleontologists, biologists and paranormalists alike.

My wife Fayaway and I have used this guide for years, and can vouch for the information contained herein: directions are clear, as are the maps, and contact information is included for some sites. This guide is recommended for those travellers in pursuit of the strange, the marvelous, and the strange in the Pacific Coast states. Happy travelling!

I enjoyed reading the book very much. I have visited a number of the places mentioned and found his information to be accurate. He provided information about locations I had never known even though I had lived there.

It also works well as a guidebook when vacationing

If you've ever tried to learn about the people who inhabited the Los Angeles area prior to colonization, you understand what a frustrating task it is. It comes in bits and pieces, often almost accidentally discovered (ever try looking up "Gabrielino" in a library computer?).

In a well-organized, clearly-written manner, William McCawley has taken the scraps out of the basket and fashioned a beautiful quilt that brings light and life to an oft-maligned people.

He has done an amazing amount of research in putting together this volume. If "God is in the details", then it is the details of religion and custom that elevate a people from the mere "diggers" I learned about in school to an intelligent society well-adapted to its environment. This is an essential resource for anyone studying or teaching about California (including fourth-grade teachers), and invaluable to those who simply enjoy learning more about Southern California history.

Very good art work and easy to read. Like the coil binding so that the book will lay flat at the bench.

A great follow-up to the first Trout & Beyond, with more esoteric adventures of Jim & friends in the real world hunting real fish most of us wouldn't fish for in the first place. Buy them both!