Looking for funky side of Austin? Check out this new book

Looking for funky side of Austin? Check out this new book

This new book is packed with tips on discovering the weird stuff in Austin, from a car wash populated with dinosaurs to a museum displaying a cigarette supposedly smoked by Marilyn Monroe. Pam LeBlanc photo

Sure, most of us already know about Barton Springs and Mount Bonnell and the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.
But did you know about the ladies’ room at Kitty Cohen’s? Or the in-home museum where you can ogle a lipstick-smudged cigarette said to be the last Marilyn Monroe ever smoked?
Get the intel on all the funkiest stuff around town in “111 Places in Austin That You Must Not Miss,” a new book by Kelsey Roslin and Nick Yeager, with photographs by Jesse Pitzler ($20; emons:). It’s the Austin edition of a series of paperback books highlighting the off-the-wall and unusual in cities around the globe, from Toyko to Chicago.
The Austin version is rife with gems.
For example, at the Jurassic Car Wash, 4809 S. Congress Avenue, you can suds up your vehicle while watching animatronic dinosaurs threaten to tear off your side mirrors. You can even wash your dog (or pig, for that matter) at the adjoining pet wash.

This painting of Bert Reynolds adorns the wall of the powder room at Kitty Cohen’s, a patio bar.


In the powder room at the patio bar Kitty Cohen’s, 2211 Webberville Road, where bright pink flamingos adorn the walls, you can check out the painting of (naked and mustachioed and seductively posed) Burt Reynolds. Snap a picture of it and tag it #UltimateKitty on Instagram, and the owners will donate a dollar to the SAFE Alliance, which helps victims of child abuse and domestic violence.
Or drop by the Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata, 1808 Singleton Ave., for a glimpse of a lock of hair from Elvis and that cigarette butt supposedly lipped by Marilyn Monroe.
There are entries for Smut Putt Heaven Holiness Church and a vegan bakery called Zucchini Kill, a place that offers goat yoga and the bathroom at County Line, where you get an audio primer on how to talk Texan.
Just call before you go, because some of the oddball entries – like Threadgill’s, which closed permanently in April – are going the way of the dinosaur.

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Dream about your next backpacking trip with ‘100 Hikes of a Lifetime’

Dream about your next backpacking trip with ‘100 Hikes of a Lifetime’

This new book from National Geographic had me dreaming about my next backpacking trip. Pam LeBlanc photo

When I sit back and think of the best moments of my life (so far), they’re always set against a backdrop of green (or sometimes blue).

I’m hiking. I’m backpacking. I’m paddling a canoe, riding a bike, sticking my feet in a mountain creek or scuba diving in a forest of coral.

When a copy of “100 Hikes of a Lifetime: The World’s Ultimate Scenic Trails,” by Kate Siber (National Geographic, $35) landed on my desk, I couldn’t wait to flip through it.

The book, a 400-page combination guide book and photo album, takes readers through a selection of hikes – short and long, beginner friendly and challenging – around the world.

I’ve hiked the John Muir Trail, the High Sierra Trail and parts of the Tahoe Rim Trail. I’ve lugged a pack up trails at Yellowstone National Park, Big Bend National Park and Glacier National Park.

Still, I’ve barely made a dent in what the hiking world has to offer. The book includes itineraries and basic information about each destination, from how many days you’ll need to set aside for the adventure and the best time to travel, to the mileage and difficulty level of each one. There are gear lists, tips on packing light, suggested post-hike activities and more.

Siber, the author, covers science, the environment, travel and outdoor sports for publications including Outside Magazine. She lives in Durango. Noted long-distance solo hiker Andrew Skurka wrote the forward.

Part of the fun of the book is seeing which hikes you’ve completed that made the list. I’ve done parts of several of the trips – the Sierra High Route, Angels Landing at Zion National Park, bits of Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica, the lower parts of 19,393-foot Cotopaxi Volcano in Ecuador and the Cinque Terre in Italy.

The other fun comes in daydreaming about which trips you’d like to do. For me, that list includes the Via Dinarica in the Western Balcans, the Kalalau Trail on the Napali Coast of Hawaii, snow leopard territory in Bhutan and Havasupai in the Grand Canyon.

 

 

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New atlas of national parks might inspire your next trip

New atlas of national parks might inspire your next trip

Jonathan Waterman’s “Atlas of the National Parks” includes details about all 61 of America’s national parks. Photo courtesy National Geographic

Backpacking beneath tongues of ice at Glacier National Park. Paddling the café au lait-colored water of the Rio Grande through Big Bend National Park. Watching a herd of elk wade across a river at Yellowstone National Park.

Our national parks serve up some of our country’s most amazing outdoor experiences, and a new book by Jon Waterman wraps them up into a 432-page compilation of photos, maps, informational graphics and well-researched text.

“Atlas of the National Parks: An Inside Look at the Beauty That Drives More than 330 Million Visitors to America’s Parks Each Year” covers a bit of general history, geology and changing climate before taking a deep dive into 32 of our country’s most unique national parks. The other 29 get more abbreviated treatment, but the result is a book that’ll push you to make your own tally of which ones you’ve already visited and which you still want to see next.

It also does something infinitely more important – it recognizes the importance of the country’s remaining wild places, and reminds you why we need to do everything we can to protect them.

“It was a massive research project,” Waterman says of the year and a half he spent working on the atlas. He didn’t visit every park before finishing – that would have taken half a dozen years, he says – but he has visited most of them. He also worked as a back country ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park and as a mountaineering ranger at Denali. Today he lives in Carbondale, Colo.

“Nothing like this has ever been done before,” Waterman says of the book, which reflects the close relationship between the National Park Service and National Geographic. “In the early days, National Geographic was a huge advocate for the creation of national parks and repeatedly would issue special editions of the magazine in order to get members of Congress to vote in new ones.”

This time around, National Geographic worked closely with the park service to create new maps and gather some of the best photographs ever taken of them for Waterman’s atlas, an over-sized, glossy-paged hulk of a book.

“It’s filled with more than 200 maps and 300 photographs,” he says. “The maps are styled with the National Geographic flourish and it would be hard to pull together a better collection of images.”

He points to the section about Yellowstone National Park, which includes a stunning aerial shot of Grand Prismatic Spring, and, on the opposite page, a graphic cutaway of beneath-the-ground features of the caldera.

The book is packed with maps, illustrations and photographs.

“We took great trouble to use all the tools available to show the yin and yang of these parks, from mountaintop to thousands of feet under the ground,” Waterman says.

The book is organized by region, and includes information about each park’s wildlife, climate, culture, archeology and recreational offerings. It’s packed with cool factoids, too, like which park is the oldest – Yellowstone, created in 1872 – and which has the deepest lake – Crater Lake. The most visited of the 61 national parks? Great Smoky Mountains, which saw 11.4 million visitors in 2018. The one with the most endangered species? Haleakala in Hawaii.

The two parks that top Waterman’s “want to visit” list are familiar to many Texas residents – Guadalupe Mountains National Park, one of the least-visited parks in the system, and Big Bend National Park, the sprawling, 1,252-square-mile behemoth in Far West Texas.

“I’m curious about the Rio Grande,” Waterman says. “I’d like to paddle it through the national park, and I love the idea of a park that comprises an international border.”

Besides the national parks, the atlas lists every national park unit, from battlefield to lakeshore, preserve, monument, river, trail and more. That list stretches five pages and hundreds of entries.

Taken as a whole, the book will make you want to pack your tent, ice down the cooler and point yourself toward the nearest national park.

“Now more than ever before, as the world becomes smaller and smaller, these parks are islands of refuge for any number of species that are crushed by a lack of habitat,” Waterman says. “We need these parks because they protect the flora and fauna and give us the opportunity to connect with wildness, and those opportunities are fading fast.”

It’ll also make you want to fight for their survival.

“I think there’s a higher ideal expressed by national parks, it’s an ideal about our democracy. We created these parks to preserve them and the resources and scenery and waterscapes for eternity, but at the same time to leave them open for all. That’s part of the paradox. Many of these parks are so popular it’s hard to control the crowds. The way we move with these parks in future tells a lot about us as a nation.”

The book, which costs $65, is available for pre-order here. It hits book stores on Nov. 19.

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What do you pack for a major expedition? New book takes a look

What do you pack for a major expedition? New book takes a look

Ed Stafford’s new book describes what some of the world’s greatest explorers took with them on their journey. Pam LeBlanc photo

Ever wonder what you’d need for a trip to the South Pole, a road trip across the Sahara Desert, or a flight across the Atlantic?

Survivalist Ed Stafford, who walked the Amazon River (with a guide) and has starred in his own series on the Discovery Channel, has put together a book that answers those questions.

“Expeditions Unpacked: What the Great Explorers Took into the Unknown” details 25 expeditions through the equipment the explorers took with them.

The book hits store shelves on Sept. 17, but I’ve been flipping through an advance copy. For me, the charm comes in reading about the non-essentials the explorers chose to take with them.

Jacques Cousteau packed a red knit beanie along with a shark cave and face mask. Pam LeBlanc photo

You might have guessed that Roald Amundsen took ski boots and skis on his expedition to the South Pole from 1910 to 1912, for example, but did you know he also packed a mandolin, a piano, a gramophone and a violin?

Amelia Earhart packed Dr. Berry’s Freckle ointment along with the essential parachutes, Bendix radio direction finder and an emergency raft on her flight across the Atlantic.

Thor Heyerdahl, who spent 101 days on a balsa wood raft during his Kon-Tiki Expedition, brought shark powder (whatever that is) and a parrot on his journey, although I’m baffled by an account of Heyerdahl’s encounter with a 50-foot whale shark with 3,000 teeth that could have “turned the Kon-Tiki to driftwood.”

Whale sharks don’t have teeth, and they’re not aggressive. They’re like giant catfish, and I’ve swum with a dozen of them at once off of Isla Mujeres.

The book covers all sorts of explorations, including sailing, bicycling, camel trekking, skiing and ballooning. I love the illustrations that go with each chapter – drawings of the supplies, unpacked and spread out.

During his first ascent of Everest in 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary tucked sardines, biscuits and tinned apricots into his luggage, along with walkie talkies, an ice axe, a nylon and cotton tent, woolen socks, crampons and goggles.

Eva Dickson, the first woman to drive across the Sahara, loaded her Chevrolet Confederate with a hunting rifle, a camping bed, a spare tire, gasoline and a copy of the Bible for her 27-day journey in 1932.

Amelia Earhart brought parachutes and a life raft, along with freckle cream. Pam LeBlanc photo

Not all the explorers mentioned made it out alive. Perhaps Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett, who disappeared after heading into the Amazon basin to find the forgotten city, was missing a few key pieces when he packed flares, a mosquito net, accordion, sextant, fedora and a tweed jacket.

Stafford allots 10 pages to his own 860-day trek along the Amazon River from 2008 to 2010. Explorers have been hauling some of the same gear he took – a hammock, a sewing awl and a machete, for example – for centuries. But he enjoyed the luxury of modern technology his predecessors never had, like GPS, satellite communication equipment, a camcorder – and DEET to keep the mosquitos away.

About Pam

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