Travel & Adventure

Before Georgetown physics professor Francis Slakey decided to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean, he had shut himself off from other people. His lectures were mechanical; his relationships were little more than ways to fill the evenings. But as his journey veered dangerously off course, everything began to change. A gripping adventure of the body and mind, To the Last Breath depicts the quest that leads Slakey around the globe, almost takes his life, and opens his heart.

The Green Gardens of God is a book about traveling the natural wonders of America. In its bold attempt to include both the external beauty and the internal dialogue that a man experiences in nature, the book takes the listener on a journey across America not soon forgotten. Come experience America like never before, as seen through the eyes of a writer with a firm conviction about the glories of the natural world around us.

"In mid-July of 1879, John Muir sailed for the first time through the sheer-walled fjords of Alaska's Inside Passage. 'Never before this,' he wrote, 'had I been embosomed in scenery so hopelessly beyond description.' During the previous 15 years, Muir had vanished into the north woods of Canada, walked a thousand miles from Kentucky to the Gulf of Mexico, and nested himself in the granite heart of California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Wild nature burned with volcanic intensity in the core of John Muir's soul. And here - amid the mountains, glaciers, and islands of Alaska - he found a wildness to match his own." - Richard Nelson

A few hours drive from most major USA cities, there is a National Wildlife Refuge. Wildlife Refuges are artificial habitats ment to entice wildlife away from farms and cities. Our tour brings us very close to nature.

This is the classic account of Francis Parkman's rugged trip over the eastern part of the Oregon Trail with his cousin Quincy Adams Shaw in the spring and summer of 1846. They left St. Louis by steamboat and traveled on horseback, in company with guides and occasionally other travelers. They encountered storms and buffalo hunts, meeting Indians, soldiers, sportsmen, and emigrants.

The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs South Dakota announced in 2011 that it now has discovered 60 specimens of prehistoric animals in this unique paleontological site. This is where, more than 26,000 years ago, large Columbian and woolly mammoths were trapped and died in a spring-fed pond. Now we visit the in-situ site. Dr. Larry Agenbroad, founder of the site, is our guide.