Mary Jane Walkeris a writer of historically well-informed travel memoirs that come with an autobiographical flavour.
Travelling around the USA by train was an adventure in itself. Mary Jane met people from all walks of life and shades of opinion. Not only was she confronted by politics in the height of the 2016 election season, but also discovered environmental and conservation issues.
Mary Jane took Amtrak trains to Glacier, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain and Yosemite national parks before the snow hit. She loved the Smithsonian Museums and after seeing a live dance at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., she decided to go to Standing Rock. It was a protest over land rights and drinking water, at 27 C below zero!
Mary Jane was awed by a Detroit which is reverting to a park, by Galveston and by Birmingham, Alabama. She was tired of being mistaken for being a homeless person because she had a backpack, and left San Francisco because of it.
Email: maryjanewalker@a-maverick.com
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a-maverick.com
Published 2021 by Mary Jane Walker
A Maverick Traveller Ltd
PO BOX 44 146, Point Chevalier, Auckland 1246
NEW ZEALAND
a-maverick.com
ISBN-13:
978-0-473-58932-5 (softcover POD)
978-0-473-58934-9 (mobi)
978-0-473-58933-2 (epub)
978-0-473-58935-6 (digital audiobook).
2021 Mary Jane Walker. All rights reserved. Except for the purpose of fair reviewing, no part of this publication subject to copyright may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Disclaimer
This book is a travel memoir, not an outdoors guide. Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at the time of publication, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. Some names have also been changed to disguise and protect certain individuals.
Notes on Images
All maps and aerial and satellite images have north at the top unless otherwise stated. All photographs in the book are the property of Mary Jane Walker unless otherwise credited.
Covers and Fonts
The front cover shows an artistically redrawn map of AMTRAK passenger services. The rear cover includes a composite year-2012 public domain image of the contiguous 48 states of the USA, courtesy NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC, which is blended into the artwork. Front cover and spine fonts are Impact Condensed. The interior text is typeset primarily in Garamond.
Contents
Front Matter
A Note on Maps and Images
If you have a copy of this book in which the images are printed in black and white, or if you have a reader with a black-and-white screen, you can see all of the images in this book that were originally in colour in full colour, and all of the images including chapter-specific maps generally at higher resolution, by going to the blog posts linked at the end of each chapter.
In fact, these blog posts will generally contain more images and other visual material than appears in the book.
Unless noted or indicated otherwise, all maps, aerial photos and satellite images are shown with north at the top.
Readers are in every case urged to make use of original maps (often zoomable if online) and guides when in the outdoors; the maps and aerial/satellite images shown in this book are purely for illustration.
For a literally more all-round perspective, you might also wish to look at some of localities I describe in the 3D view on Google Earth.