Travels in a Strange State

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Paul F. Pinsky

"From New York to Los Angeles, Chicago to San Antonio, inner city to penthouse row, pristine park to post-industrial wasteland, the author cycles the streets and paths of fifty of America's largest urban outposts. Part bike-travelogue, part journey through urban history, Biking Through the 'Hoods provides a panoramic, yet ground level, picture of urban America, past and present. You don't need to be an urban cyclist to appreciate Biking Through the 'Hoods, but if you are one, you'll recognize the trials and travails, and occasional triumphs, of navigating the nation's car-dominated cityscapes on two wheels."--P. [4] of cover.

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Evelyn McDaniel Gibb

"In 1909, Vic McDaniel and Ray Francisco, just out of high school, set out from Santa Rosa, California, on second-hand bikes, bound for the great Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle. With excitement in their hearts and a good luck billiken in their bedroll, they pedaled, pushed, and walked a thousand miles north for fifty-four days. Camp was wherever, whenever the sun was gone; food was an occasional meal from a kindly farm wife and what they could fish, hunt, or glean.". "Evelyn Gibb, daughter of one of the cyclists, has drawn on her father's recollections to tell this incredible story in his voice. Readers of all ages will find themselves pulled into the resolute push to complete the trek. Two Wheels North is an account of a journey that today we can only dream about - one that finds two boys on the road not only to Seattle, but also to manhood."--BOOK JACKET.

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William L. Fox

Road trips to Las Vegas are the occasion for this entertaining meditation on the quintessentially American experience of driving across the desert. William Fox, successively exiled from California, Nevada, and New Mexico, has spent more time than most of us driving to Las Vegas - and he has taken notes on three recent trips, his own way of bringing cohesion to the vast and mind-numbing aspects of the freeway. Approaching the most post-modern city on the planet from three directions, he examines the landscape and what we do to it while also trying to figure out who he is, what that means, and the nature of the transformations of land into landscape through art and architecture, landscape design, and advertising. Fox's history of the region, both natural and cultural, highlights the creep of the urban supergrid across the most extensively traveled desert in the world.

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por Pam Muñoz Ryan

Takes the reader on an imaginary trip through California while offering information about the history and geography of this varied region with its numerous historic sites.