3 comments about New Jersey Day Trips: A Guide to Outings in New Jersey and Nearby Areas of New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware (New Jersey Day Trips).

1. New format looks good for this old favorite. The 10th edition,published by Rutgers Univ. Press, may be a little milder in its view of NJ outings than previous editions, but the book still has a "voice". There are many new entries, quite a few of the short, factual variety so newcomers to the state should find plenty to do. Earlier editions had better cross-references and indexes, but this one has better driving directions and includes websites for almost all entries.
   Out of state entries like th Crayola Factory or Hyde Park are now found at the end of each chapter, so once you get used to this you know where to find them. STill the best alll around guidebook to New Jersey.



2. This product was sent in a timely manner and in described condition- would do service with again!



3. Good book filled with interesting day trips not only in New Jersey but nearby states. I had purchased one about 10 years ago but needed a more current one.

4 comments about Insiders' Guide to Portland, Oregon, 5th: Including the Metro Area and Vancouver, Washington (Insiders' Guide Series).

1. INSIDERS' GUIDE TO PORTLAND, OREGON, 5TH is a great guide to the cities of Portland and Vancouver, as well as their surrounding suburbs. Besides such information as house values, attractions, and the quality of schools in the area, the book also features detailed listings of the radio stations in the area, as well as in-depth discussions of what types of healthy-eating ideas and ethnic cuisine you can find in this metroplex. The book lacks a deep discussion of shopping malls in the area, preferring instead to focus on the other types of stores where a guy can find things to keep his woman happy, including CDs to dance to with her and clothes to help him look his best for her, which seems to indicate that independent stores are often the way to go to keep such promises, especially in a high-culture area such as Portland/Vancouver. Despite the lack of information on local malls, however, it's a wonderful book.



2. I liked the information in this book, Even has school listings. I was purchasing it for tourism purposes and it covers that but doesn't have pictures or long descriptions and prices. Since that is what I was looking for I was a little disappointed. Good for info bad for tourists.



3. This book has lots of useful information, but fails to tie the information in to graphics for those of us who have trouble visualizing the locations from the text. The neighborhoods are described by their names, and rougly tied into the city as a whole. However, the maps are not specific enough.



4. These books (there is a series) are the first resource we go to upon learning that it is, once again, time for us to transfer. They have all the information that most people could need and I recommend them to every military person I know that is in the process of transferring to make their move just a little bit easier. A look at the contents of this particular book:
   
   Area Overview
   Getting Here, Getting Around
   History
   Bed-and-Breakfast Inns
   Hotels and Motels
   Restaurants
   Brewpubs
   Coffeehouses
   Nightlife
   Shopping
   Attractions
   Kidstuff
   Festivals and Annual Events
   The Arts
   Recreation and Spectator Sports
   Portland Parks
   Golf
   Day Trips
   Relocation
   Child Care and Education
   Health Care and Wellness
   Retirement
   Media
   Worship
   Index
   
   No, there aren't a lot of pictures, but I can buy a coffee-table book for that. This is information and lots of it - including addresses, phone numbers, and websites when appropriate. Great for visitors and potential newcomers alike!

No comments about Benchmark Washington Road & Recreation Atlas (Benchmark Map: Washington Road & Recreation Atlas).

5 comments about Guide to Southern California Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails.

1. I would give these books ten stars if I could! I think I own every book Charles Wells has published. The information contained in these books is definitely the best you can buy. The trail descriptions, maps and helpful tips are invaluable when you are out on the trail. We have certainly enjoyed putting these books to good use.
   
   My two Colorado books and especially the Moab book are dog-eared and well worn from many happy days on the trails. I too was surprised when pages fell out of the California book. I called the 800 number listed in all of the books and was surprised when the author answered the phone. I can tell you he was genuinely embarrassed by the quality problems in this printing. He told me he has since changed printers and the way the books are bound. He immediately offered to send me a new copy from the new printing at no charge! I asked if he had ever thought about a spiral bound version. He liked the idea and sent me a custom-made spiral bound version, and only asked that I let him know what I thought.
   
   Mr. Wells, I wanted to tell you publicly that your customer service is the best I have ever encountered! My navigator, who is also my wife, said she really likes the spiral bound version and she hopes you bring those out for all your books. Thank you again for all the beautiful places we have visited as a result of your wonderful books!



2. This book is great. I have gone to many of the places in the book since I bought it, many of which I did not even know about. The book makes the locations easy to find thanks to the listed GPS waypoints and you also know what to expect on the trails thanks to the information given.



3. This is a GREAT book. I have ridden on most of the trails, from Arrowhead, Big Bear to the Anza Borrego Dersert. With variety this wide, you can ride all year long, deserts in the winter, mountains in the summer. I have recommended this book to many other people who have purchased it and ridden with them on these trails and they have followed the book and gone on rides by themselves.
   If you 4-wheel it or ride motorcycles make sure that you get a street legal motorcycle and buy this book.



4. This is a great book for off-roading! My husband, our 2 golden retrievers and I have been on many of the trails. All the mileage markers are right on and easy to follow (especially if you have a GPS system). One MAJOR flaw in the book is it's terrible binding. Our first book literally fell apart on the second use, only held together by a big rubber band. I bought another one (is this the author's intention, you think?)and after receiving it, immediately took it to Kinko's where they spiral bound it for under $5.00 in just 5 minutes. It's even better than the original, because it will lay flat for easier use. I've purchased a total of 4 of these (for other off-roading friends!).



5. I offroad a modified Jeep. I only use fireroads as highways to get to the fun stuff. And then it's airdown, disconnect and slap that baby into 4Lo. This book is a good one for everyone who needs good way points and a little background on the local trails. It is conservative. I think that's a good idea. Some trails listed as difficult were not a problem for my Jeep when it was stock. (But then again, it's a Jeep.) I would prefer a book be conservative rather than see some less than capable vehicles or less than experienced drivers get out there and get into trouble. As for flaws, trails change with weather and popularity. This book has been a good friend. Especially in the middle of the night when we lost the entrance to John Bull. (Ok, one flaw...needs to be spiral bound. My pages have all come undone in the current form.)

4 comments about Hiking Virginia, 2nd: A Guide to Virginia's Greatest Hiking Adventures.

1. For anyone looking for great hikes in VA, this is a great place to start. The book contains detailed descriptions of 35 of the best hikes in VA and also list 64 honorable mention hikes. The length of the hikes vary from short day hikes, to 3 day backpacking trips.
   
   What is nice about the book is that for the featured hikes, there is a brief description. Then a ton of information: difficulty rating, available maps, trail contacts, and fees or permits required, available camping etc etc. The book then goes on to describe in detail what you will see on each hike. Each hike contains not only a map, but an 'elavation profile' so you can gauge just how hard the hike will be.
   
   I would recommend buying this book, and when you choose a hike, make a copy of the corresponding pages and laminate them. It will save wear and tear on your book as well as give you a water proof map.. Besides, it's also a lot lighter to carry 3 pages rather then a whole book!!!!
   
   My favorite hikes in the book have been Mount Pleasant, 3 Ridges (a difficult hike) and the hikes around Mount Rogers and Grayson Highlands.
   
   UPDATE: I recently did a few more of the hikes in this book(14, 18, 19). DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT follow the authors' advice for the Old Rag hike, #14. Instead of their route, either 1) Hike the fire road up and down (this is the easiest way) or take the rock scramble up and the fire road down. There are two problems with the route suggested by the authors. First, on crowded summer days you will have a hard time getting down as the trail is jammed with people going up. Second, I went during the week when it wasn't as packed and ran into a gentleman going up the scramble as I was going down. He told me that 90% of the people they carry off of the mountain with broken bones are trying to descend using the 'rock scramble' route. So if you are going to climb Old Rag (and YOU REALLY NEED TO, it is amazing) then PLEASE, use the routes I recommended above, and if it's a weekend during the summer, be prepared for a long climb up if you take the rock scramble, as people get jammed up in the narrow crevices.
   
   Good hiking everyone!!!!!!



2. This book is by far the best hiking guide you can buy for Virginia. This edition picks off from the original "Hike America Virginia"



3. This book is your complete hiking guide to Virginia, whether you're a novice or a pro. There are maps, detailed descriptions of every step of the trails, elevation guides, and even colorful anecdotes from the authors that give each hike an emotional feel. We've brought their step-by-step guides to great fruition on several of the hikes, and hope to do more.
   
   One word of caution: while crowded Northern Virginia is well represented, the best hikes fall along Virginia's spine, from the northernmost part of Shenandoah National Park, down the Appalachian trail, into Washington and Jefferson National Forests and then southwestern Virginia and Mt. Rogers. Residents of Front Royal, Harrisonburg, Staunton, Lexington, Roanoke and Blacksburg will be able to access the best hikes the easiest. As residents of a DC suburb, it's an hour to Shenandoah National Park, 2 hours to some of the great hikes further south, and 6 hours to Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area.



4. I have used this guide twice so far for short hikes. Directions to both the parking areas and on the trail were missing crucial details [e.g. I had problems with both for the Scott's Run Nature Preserve in the DC area]. Unless you have extra time and food and water, it is best to have a topo for even the shortest routes. This guide also lacks the grouping section that the VA Mtn Biking guide has [Best Short Hikes, Waterfalls, Views, Weekenders, Multi-day treks] and is grouped only by geography.

5 comments about Plants of Arizona.

1. There is no current book available that discusses the plants of this state. I believe the last comprehensive book was printed in the 70's. This is a good comprehensive guide with many colorful photographs, and lots of good information.



2. Over the years, I've purchased a dozen or more books to identify desert wildflowers photographed during Superstition Wilderness hikes. This is by far the best book that I've found.
   - Clear closeup photos that capture the distinctiveness of each flower
   - Informative details: Height, Flowers, Stems, Spines, Bloom months, Elevation, Habitat, and Comments
   
   The "Look inside" pages were poorly choosen--the book is better than portrayed. (Ferns aren't as visually exciting as flowers and no description pages were included.)
   
   Check out the index to see the depth of the coverage.



3. This guide is for the serious students, not for the merely curious. In an effort to show everything, this book provides you with more information that you can use. There are so many plants that are so similar, it's difficult to tell one from the other. However, if you want this kind of detail, this is the book for you. For you, it might be a 5-star book!



4. This book has been an amazing help to me in identifying trees, cacti and flowers around the state of Arizona. It is well-organized, with glossy color pictures in the front half of the book, grouped by color in a relatively easy-to-find way, under descriptions such as "Daisylike and Dandionlike White or Whitish Flowers" or "Tiny Pink to Reddish Pink Flowers." Under each photograph is the flower's common name and the page number for the back portion of the book, in which detailed information is found.
   
   In the back section, each plant's description includes: All the known common names; the scientific name and family to which it belongs; the plant's height; detailed, non-scientific description of the flowers and leaves; the bloom season; the elevation at which the plant grows; the habitat in which it is found; and additional, relevant comments, including where the photograph was taken and if the plant is poisonous, or has any traditional medical uses, etc.
   
   My only disappointment is that, surely for brevity's sake, some plants are left out, which, while understandable, can make some identifications questionable. For instance, in trying to ID a high-elevation paintbrush, the book mentions "Over a dozen species of Castilleja in Arizona; the species of this genus are difficult to identify." And only four of those dozen species are in the book. Still, with 853 species pictured and described, Plants of Arizona is much more thorough for the state of Arizona than any other field guide out there.



5. A slightly less than perfect reference for the slightly more than serious amateur or the out of region professional.
   
   Somewhat, perhaps necessarily, overlarge for convenient use in the field.
   
   Rather beyond the Sunday stroll wildflower fancier.
   
   Like any so-called field guide in which all the images are collected in a separate section, actual field identification using PLANTS OF ARIZONA is troublesome. This is a criticism of the book's utility, not of its' excellent content.

3 comments about Hidden Montana: Including Missoula, Helena, Bozeman, and Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks.

1. Braeking the state up into sections, the author does an excellent job of describing and presenting the various highlights of each. Equal treatment is given to popular and off-the-beaten-path areas, with sufficient detail for each. It made my recent visit more enjoyable!



2. Hidden Montana appears in its third edition to cover inns, tours, drives, and outdoors explorations throughout the state. From Glacier Park to Yellowstone, this is packed with lesser-known byways. Recommended.



3. This book was a wonderful guide to the areas of Montana we traveled through. There were several things we would not have seen if it hadn't been for the suggestions in the book and some excellent restaurants we wouldn't have stopped at if they had not been recommended by the book. We plan to get another "hidden" book for our next trip.

No comments about Journey Through Hallowed Ground: Birthplace of the American Ideal.

5 comments about A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple, Mayflower, 1620 (Dear America Series).

1. Remember Patience Whipple is a pilgrim child on the Mayflower. When Remember comes ashore, things get tough. Lots of people are dying, including a member of her family, and it's harder still when her best friend has to go back to Holland. I first saw the movie version of this book, and I just had to read it. After a slow beginning, it gets better and better. This is not quite as good as the other "Dear America" books that I have enjoyed--but like the other books, this one made me feel as though I was back in the past with the characters.



2. A wonderful beginning to the Dear America Series. Remember Patience Whipple better known as Mem is a twelve year old girl on the Mayflower with her parents and little sister Blessing. Set up in a diary form Mem writes about the voyage, her new friend Hummy and her experiences on the Mayflower and the first couple months at Plymouth Rock. She meets one of the Native Americans Squanto, experiences losing her new friend Hummy, her mother's illness and death, and her father's remarriage. Kathryn Lasky made Mem such a delightful and wonderful girl and paints a vivid picture of life on the Mayflower and at Plymouth Rock.



3. My daughter is studying the pilgrims in school and will not put this book down. She is a good reader, but this is the first book that has her engaged. I think she enjoys the fact that the events really could or did happen. I think she is reading it and feels like she is almost the character. She told me to find her more historical fiction.



4. This is a very good look at early pilgrim life, or at least as good a one as is likely to make its way into popular children's literature. The pilgrims' penchant for grave robbing is toned down (a 'mound' of earth is dug up, with no mention that the mound is a freshly dug grave) and the Native Americans are treated as fairly as could be hoped for in a book that attempts to see them through a little English girl's eyes (she envies their ability to swim and admires their herbal remedies which end up saving several pilgrim lives).
   
   This is a good addition to the Dear America series, though I found it to be slightly less compelling than the Oregon Trail diary. The crossing over is described fairly blandly, though to be fair is probably accurate - the passengers weren't often allowed to be ondeck and underfoot. Similarly, the construction of the colony seems to move as a blur, but the author is handicapped (as so many of the Dear America books are) by the fact that the girl in question would not have been allowed to participate in a meaningful manner in these activities simply because she is a girl. None of this makes the book less worthy of reading, and is just mentioned here as a caution to not set expectations too high for action/adventure.
   
   It is worth noting to parents: Something like 17+ pilgrims die in this book, including one baby who dies almost immediately after childbirth, and a close member of the diary writer's family. The diary accurately reflects the growing numbness of the author, with entries like "Dear [diary], Four more people died today. Yours, Mem." While I felt this made for a realistic portrayal, it is possible that a very small child may find this distressing.



5. These Diary stories were some of my favorite books when I was younger. Now that I have grown up I still enjoy reading them. They are awesome books to do book reports on. This story was especially well written. I enjoyed reading about mems life in a new world

3 comments about Insiders' Guide to South Dakota's Black Hills and Badlands, 4th (Insiders' Guide Series).

1. We are planning a trip to the Badlands and Black Hills in September. Insider's Guide provides a wealth of information and I'm finding it a valuable asset. Combined with info from the internet, we will have a well organized trip with knowledge of this area's history.



2. We just got back from a week-long trip to the Black Hills using this guidebook, and while it was better than nothing, and the information was generally correct, it was very hard to use. Instead of being arranged by location, the attractions are arranged by category, with each category subdivided yet again. And the index is no use, since they're not indexed by location. This means that if you're sitting in your motel in (say) Deadwood, and wondering what to do in town, you literally have to thumb through the entire book to figure out! Very frustrating. And the book lacks detailed maps where they are needed (the Deadwood-Lead area, where the roads are rather confusing, or the area around Keystone, Mt. Rushmore, and Crazy Horse). The maps mention the Mickelson Trail, but it's not in the index, and we didn't find out what it was until we were actually there (hint: it's not a scenic highway). And the book needs to be more emphatic about the need to stay away from this whole region in early August because of the motorcycle madness.



3. We just returned from over a week in the Badlands and Black Hills. Although this book had a lot of very useful information, I hated searching through it. Everything is divided into its own category: hotels, restaurants, activities, etc. So when we were in one place for a day or two, we had to search through different sections to find all of the info for that one place. Even worse, each section is divided out by Northern Hills, Central Hills, etc. or by the type of food you're looking for. There was no central location to find all of the restaurants in Deadwood, for example. Apart from that, I found most of the info to be correct and useful. A few of the entry fees were higher in reality, but my biggest problem was with the book's organization. It was a great vacation, and I had a hard time coming home...