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The Road South
The Florida Keys
A History & Guide, 1996 Edition
By Joy Williams
Random House, $14
ISBN 0-679-75934-4
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Aah, Spring . . . the dogwoods in blossom, Miss Manners groupies breaking out their white shoes, and a young man's fancy turns to . . . ROAD TRIP!!! Grab the maps, gas up the old flivver. Ladies and gentlemen, we're southbound!
A day or two of nonstop driving will get you from almost any snowbound burg (berg?) to Key West, the southernmost point in the continental USA. Bougain-villaea and frangipani erupt into bloom at every turn. Cuban food and festive tropical drinks gently erase the rigors of the road. Opportunities for adventure abound, from deep sea fishing to snorkeling through the riotously colorful John Pennecamp Coral Reef.
For the past several years, I've made the trek from Nashville to the Keys accompanied by a dog-eared, marked-up copy of Joy Williams's excellent guidebook, appropriately named The Florida Keys: A History & Guide, 1996 Edition. Mile marker by mile marker, Williams traces Highway 1 from Biscayne Bay to its terminus in Key West, pointing out the best restaurants and hotels, the native shops, and the photo opportunities along the way. Interwoven with the tourist details are nature lore and historical nuggets guaranteed to change the way you look at the social and ecosystems of the Keys.
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Up the road, we cross the state line into Georgia (Jaw-juh, to the initiated), where mint juleps and magnolia blossoms coexist alongside Lexuses and the Olympic games with less discord than you might imagine. A new guidebook by Kap Stann, Georgia Handbook, provides an in-depth travel commentary on the land of kudzu. The format will be familiar to readers of Lonely Planet publications or Insight Guides: sections on Getting Oriented, Food and Accommodations, Sights, Entertainment, etc., a capsule history of the state and its people, as well as a plethora of ultra-high-quality photographs.
John F. Blair, Publisher, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has released several series of tourbooks covering the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Georgia. I use the word tourbook as opposed to guidebook because these books are essays, journeys into the ambience of the areas.
The Backroads series covers East and Middle Tennessee, the Carolina and Georgia Coast, and Western North Carolina. A dozen or more tours in each book crisscross Dixie, tracing the history and legends that illuminate the South: Daniel Boone, the Scopes Monkey Trial, the Wright Brothers, the Manhattan Project, the Great Dismal Swamp, Jack Daniel's.
The Afoot in the South series, by Phillip Manning, with handsome illustrations by his wife, Diane, is a two-volume (so far) set of essays on walks in the natural areas of North and South Carolina. Fans of John McPhee should flock to Manning's writings; his curiosity and gentle wit are evocative of McPhee's wilderness stories. On a morning walk: "I hear the first thwap! It is. . . the first shot in the Great Hickory Nut Bombardment. Although I don't see one of the bombardiers for another half-mile, I know who's responsible: Sciurus carolinensis, the terror of the backyard bird feeder, known to most of us as the eastern gray squirrel."
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Footsteps of the Cherokees, by photographer/author Vicki Rozema, is a photographic tourbook of the Eastern Cherokee Nation. The first 60 pages or so discuss the customs, folklore, and lives of the Cherokees. The remaining 300-odd pages identify the 19 regions of the Cherokee homeland and explore the historic areas therein. References to the Trail of Tears remind us of one of the most shameful episodes of our westward expansion.
There are sufficient travel opportunities in these books to keep a weekend warrior busy for a decade. Whether your idea of vacation is (a) learning experience, (b) rest and relaxation, or (c) suntan and margaritas, the New South has what you are looking for, and these books tell you how to find it.
Bruce Tierney is an avid writer and traveler of Southern roads.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.