Brendan Stark

There are so many amazing, gorgeous places in this country of ours. Riverside in the summer is not one of them, unfortunately. After blue skies and clear roads for two weeks, the drive from Victorville from Riverside was a smoggy, traffic-filled let down. I still love SoCal, but it’s a nice reminder that for all the things we have, clean air is not one of them.

Here’s what I listened to on the way out to Rapid City.

1. Rising From the Plains (Unabridged) John McPhee. This is the ulitmate audio book to listen to if you’re driving on I80 and want to make your brain smarter. It’s all about the top geologist of the Rocky Mountains and all about the geology of Wyoming. Some parts of Wyoming aren’t that pretty, but those are actually some of the most significant places on earth when it comes to how the land was formed over time. A great use of  7 1/2 hours in a car.

2. Lost in My Own Backyard by Tim Cahill. I’ll listen to this again when we’re on our way to Yellowstone. A local’s guide to the important things to see and experience in Yellowstone. It was pretty good, but at 2 hrs 10 min a lot less in depth than the McPhee book.

3. Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. This is going to be a huge movie some day. It’s part Peter Pan, part Pirates of the Caribbean (Johnny Depp version) and part Master and Commander. So far the kids haven’t been into it, but we still have 2/3 of the book left to go.