This new edition takes you off the major highways to discover the sights, scenes, history, and places that make the Lone Star State unique.

There's more to see, do, and taste in Texas than anyone could ever experience in a lifetime, but with this guide you'll never lack for trying! From the rustic charm of the Hill Country to the mountains, deserts, and stunning sunsets of West Texas, the plains and canyons of the Panhandle to the sandy dunes of the Gulf Coast, the diversity of Texas will astound you. This revised second edition highlights places of natural beauty, cultural heritage, and historical significance, all the while introducing you to some of the friendliest folks you'll ever meet.

Soak up the breathtaking Lone Star State, one drive at a time From the rustic charm of the Hill Country to the mountains, deserts, and stunning sunsets of West Texas, the plains and canyons of the Panhandle to the sandy dunes of the Gulf Coast, the diversity of Texas will astound you. This revised third edition highlights places of natural beauty, cultural heritage, and historical significance, all the while introducing you to some of the friendliest folks you’ll ever meet. There’s more to see, do, and taste in Texas than anyone could ever experience in a lifetime, but with this guide you’ll never lack for trying! Drives include: • The Rio Grande Valley • The Texas Coast • The Panhandle Plains and Canyons • The Best BBQ in Texas

Get off the beaten path and explore the hidden-gem destinations within a few hours of the Mother Road! Includes numerous photos and illustrations. Known as the Main Street of America and the Mother Road, US Route 66 is the nation’s best-known highway. This lavishly illustrated book steers you from Chicago to Los Angeles, traveling through the lowlands of the American Plains and the high plateaus of New Mexico and Arizona, from the Great Lakes to the mighty Pacific Ocean, and through major metropolises and remote country towns. Best of all, it lets you branch away from the Mother Road and encounter gems hidden beyond today’s standard motels and tourist traps—the quaint frontier communities that date back to the nation’s westward expansion; the legacy of ancient native cultures; and the awe-inspiring natural wonders that have graced these lands since time immemorial. State parks, wildlife refuges, museums, historic sites, literary landmarks, and much more are there to be explored within a few hours’ drive from the path of Route 66. The fifty trips included here offer new travel opportunities for the thousands of road-trippers who follow this legendary route, looking for something more. “The road and this book recall a time before franchise restaurants and chain motels choked America’s highways . . . the guide consists of 50 driving tours, which include plenty of side trips.” —Arizona Republic

Florida has been called "The State Without A Soul." The people that moved to Florida left their roots at the place they came from. This history of the long ago features people with their roots who were born here, walked the sands of time and will be buried here at the Cedars of Lebanon Cemetery. Their headstones already mark the spot where their roots will remain for eternity. Dessie Smith Prescott, whose picture is in the "Women's Hall of Fame" in Tallahassee said, "If you find yourself on a back road, get off and walk the main road." Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is also in the Hall of Fame because Dessie helped her to survive long enough to write "The Yearling" and many other Florida books. Some of the history tells of the memories and roots that people brought to this area to build "The State With A Soul." This book is written so that the old stories don't get lost. It links the threads together of the Soul or Spirit of Florida.

Thirty years ago after changing the sports book landscape with his mega-hit, A Season on the Brink, #1 New York Times bestselling author John Feinstein returns to his first love--college basketball--with a fascinating and compelling journey through a landscape of unsung, unpublicized and often unknown heroes of Division-1 college hoops. John Feinstein has already taken readers into the inner circles of top college basketball programs in The Legends Club. This time, Feinstein pulls back the curtain on college basketball's lesser-known Cinderella stories--the smaller programs who no one expects to win, who have no chance of attracting the most coveted high school recruits, who rarely send their players on to the NBA. Feinstein follows a handful of players, coaches, and schools who dream, not of winning the NCAA tournament, but of making it past their first or second round games. Every once in a while, one of these coaches or players is plucked from obscurity to continue on to lead a major team or to play professionally, cementing their status in these fiercely passionate fan bases as a legend. These are the gifted players who aren't handled with kid gloves--they're hardworking, gritty teammates who practice and party with everyone else. With his trademark humor and invaluable connections, John Feinstein reveals the big time programs you've never heard of, the bracket busters you didn't expect to cheer for, and the coaches who inspire them to take their teams to the next level.

“Enlightening and inspiring.” — Walter Isaacson “Barry probes the American soul, finding its biases, but also, nurtured by its complicated past, our better angels — with an opportunity to move forward.” — Ken Burns Bringing together two of America’s unifying loves — road trips and Abraham Lincoln — Frank Barry takes readers on a thought-provoking journey into the heart of our democracy and the soul of our country A year into his marriage and having never driven an RV, Frank and his wife Laurel set out from New York City in a Winnebago to drive the nation’s first transcontinental route, the Lincoln Highway, which zigzags through small towns and big cities from Times Square to San Francisco. Using the spirit of Abraham Lincoln to guide them across the land, they hope to see more clearly what holds the country together — and how we can keep it together, even amidst political divisions have grown increasingly rancorous, bitter, and exhausting. Along the way, Frank and Laurel meet Americans whose personal experiences help humanize the nation’s divisions, and they encounter historical figures and events whose legacies are still shaping our sense of national identity and the struggles over it. This unforgettable journey is full of what makes any great road trip memorable and enjoyable: music, conversation, and laughter. By the end, readers will have a clearer picture of how we have arrived at a period that carries echoes of the Civil War era, and — using Lincoln as a guide — where the path forward lies.

Dr. Norman Hall has lived a full lifeninety-four years and counting, and he looks back at navigating change, overcoming challenges, and bearing witness to history in this memoir. Along the way, he ponders his successes and failures, the whys and the why-nots, the might-have-beens, the near-misses, and the what-ifs. While he grew up as a Texas country boy with limited success in school, he graduated from college, served four years in the Army, and spent seventy years as a school administrator. He recalls adventures dating all the way back to the 1920s and 1930s when his boyhood ranch was one of only two in a three-mile area. His playmates were Mexican children, and as he played with them, he learned their language and many of their customs. The roads were mainly dirt, and the rural mail carrier was the chief source of news for most families. Life was made up of many carefree days enjoying the small-town atmosphere. Join the author as he relives bucolic tales of rural life, serving in the Army, starting a family, and educating children and young adults in Back Roads of My Memory.

Penny Lazarus has spent her entire life wishing she could escape from the real world. Through it all, she had exactly one friend - her sister, Dana - and now Dana's dead, drowned in the distant Pacific under mysterious circumstances. But she left something behind, meant only for her sister's eyes: a surreal teen-road-trip screenplay, BACK ROADS TO VEGAS. Penny sets out into the wilds of West Virginia to make her sister's movie...and winds up taking an unplanned detour, straight off I-64 and into a madcap alternate America. Here, in the hidden country known as the Back Roads, every individual's deepest desire emerges as a powerful supernatural ability. In Penny's case, that means she's a Veil, capable of turning herself invisible, intangible, ghost-like. Stranger yet, this is a place Dana somehow knew about. That bizarro screenplay? A veiled code, Penny soon realizes, embedded with clues leading deeper into the unknown. The only problem is that nearly everything in the Back Country is trying to kill her and/or drag her soul away to netherworldly depths. Like the man-eating mosquitoes. And the gangs of slave-trading cyborg bikers, and the soul-devouring tree haunted by its long-dead victims, and the snake-handling zealot who's mesmerized his flock into following him to the depths of Hell. Also, Death himself, who turns out to be kind of a jerk in real life. She's got help, too, for whatever it's worth: a fierce mountain-woman werewolf and a guitar-slinging thief who slowly but surely ensnares Penny's heart, entirely against her better instincts. What she hoped to find was the truth behind her sister's fate. But what awaits her at the end of the road is something even bigger - the dark secret of her own world-shattering destiny. BACK ROADS KINGDOM is the first volume in a thrilling new American fantasy saga that weaves together Appalachian folktales, urban legends and paranormal lore into a dark and bizarrely comic coal punk epic.

At one time or another, shifting seasons in family, friendships, employment, and communities will bring each of us face-to-face with the feeling of being on the outside looking in. Because we are made for connection, this will often lead us down one of two roads. Either we will hop on the popular but crowded highway that asks us to do whatever it takes to get noticed, or we'll stand still, paralyzed by the fear that we're not important, loveable, or worth other people's time and attention. But what if there is another way? With an understanding voice that will speak into your own circumstances, Kristen Strong walks beside you along the less traveled but more satisfying third way--the back road way--to belonging: remaining in Christ and relaxing into the unique role God has for you. Along the way, you will learn simple, doable actions that not only will help you feel and know that you belong but will welcome others in as well.