If you’re prepping for a summer vacation of some sort, I hope you’re planning on taking along some (real) books to help unwind. Reading is my preferred method of unwinding during travel.

Although I haven’t spent a lot of time lately either in airports or on airplanes, it was air travel that finally convinced me it was time to get digital reading material rather than lugging books around. My iPad has a 250-volume library aboard, so I’m usually able to find “something” to ready.

Doesn’t mean I’m immune to the call of a book with a spine and pages I can dog-ear, but having a digital books on hand reduces my temptation to add “another rock to the back pack.”

Travel via car or RV, however, lends itself to analog reading.

Not having to physically lug a book, especially a large one, definitely makes it easier to toss in a couple of good ones. Having only traveled via highway for the past year, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to read while relaxing from hours spent on the road.

Here are a pair I’ve already enjoyed this summer. One’s available today. The other won’t be released until next month. Both should be considerations if you’re a bibliophile.

If you’re an outdoor enthusiast, you’re aware just how amazing a job our fish and wildlife agencies do. Before I received this book, I had no idea how long they’ve been collecting and assembling their knowledge, or how deep -historically speaking- their expertise really is.

America’s Bountiful Waters… is a terrific read about the people and places that have worked to make certain we have the opportunity to fish for our amusement or nourishment today.

Their work has been a successful melding of science, emerging technological advances and history. My love of all three is one reason I’ve been rereading, and savoring, America’s Bountiful Waters, 150 Years of Fisheries Conservation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.

It’s a terrific book that’s not just a historical look at the work the USFWS has done to preserve our waters. It’s also a great book to teach about the many types of fish that inhabit our inland and coastal waters, many of which literally owe their existence to the USFWS and its predecessors. I thought spending decades chasing many of them gave me a pretty good understanding of them, but this book has proven me wrong many times over.

The book covers 150 years of real ichthyological adventure, from the early experiments with raising fish to today’s highly successful efforts to return fish to areas where man has, unfortunately, made it difficult for them to survive.

Reading through this book, you’ll learn plenty about fish, fisheries and the men and women who have spent their professional lives either preserving or restoring both. It made me aware of the praise they each deserve for their passion, skillful writing and most of all, their willingness to do work that’s often taken for granted by most of us. It’s work that editor Craig Springer (no stranger to our readers who appreciate good storytellers) described best when he writes:

“America’s Bountiful Waters transcends the living and the dead and speaks to conservation opportunities that await the unborn. Beauty opens the soul’s attention to the loveworthy. What is good is intrinsically most worthy of love- and so it is with nature’s perfect creatures.”

Amen.

Due for an August 3 release date, A Sports Fan’s Guide to Route 66 is exactly what it says, although there’s a generous helping of the many other quirky things that make Route 66 such an intriguing trip back into America’s love affair with the highway.

The second book isn’t out yet, but you need to have it on your radar- and possibly your calendar. It’s sports enthusiast (and full-time RV traveler) Ron Clements’ ode to Route 66. But before you date yourself humming “we get our kicks….on Route 66” you need to know Ron’s changed those lyrics to “Get your balls, bats and sticks…on Route 66” for his ode to one of America’s most historic highways.

Rather than just talk about all the quirky and nostalgic “stuff” along that historic highway, he’s turned his sports enthusiasm into A Sports Fan’s Guide to Route 66- and created an ode to the highway and sports.

As a RoadTrip America guide, there are specific instructions on things to see, how to find them, and, not coincidentally, check out all the must-stop eateries and other nostalgic attractions on the way. But the primary focus is on sports, whether it be directions to Mickey Mantle’s childhood home (Commerce, Oklahoma -and while you’re there, check out the Dairy Queen and Allen’s Hole in the Wall Conoco Station, both on Main Street), the best place for a hard-core rugby game in Tulsa, or see terrific major and minor league sports as you travel from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California.

Along the route, Clements shares information about the various pro teams based in cities and towns along the “mother route” as well as great anecdotes curated from auto and horse tracks, rodeo arenas, golf course, or from hunters, anglers and high school sports enthusiasts.

The book features more than three hundred color photos, as well as nine maps showing various attractions in the eight states (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California) along the route.

In this country, history and highways are intertwined and inseparable. Each of them could tell their own unique story, but Route 66, at least when it comes to sports, has an advocate in Ron Clements.

It’s the weekend! Enjoy!

— Jim Shepherd

Editor’s Note:

America’s Bountiful Waters is available from a number of online booksellers. Currently, however, it is available via Amazon for $36, a 26% savings over the $49.95 retail price. You can order it here.

RoadTrips America A Sports Fan’s Guide to Route 66 will be available on Amazon and other online retailers beginning its release date -August 3, 2021, in either bound ($24.95) or as a Kindle e-book ($9.71 pre-order price).