You've mulled a lot today - I'll have to read these tomorrow when I have a little time.

Despite having been a female park ranger and suffering the indignities of people trying to call me a "rangerette," as Abbey did in his novels (I always corrected them), I really loved his writing. It was a huge loss when he died after surgery in the late 80s.

Have you read Lonely Are the Brave or seen the film with Kirk Douglas? Classic Abbey.

As an NPS park ranger, I can tell you I had many conversations about his book Desert Solitaire, including with people who are mentioned in it (fictionalized). He wrote what many of us felt but could not say in public. And I remember a balmy evening in the summer of 1982, sitting on the steps of the staff housing building at Suglarlands Visitor Center in the Great Smoky Mtns Natl Park, taking turns reading out loud the chapter on Industrial Tourism. It was the summer of the Knoxville Worlds Fair (remember when they used to hold those every few years?) and the tourists were eating us alive. Abbey was a godsend - he understood. We were part of the resources that the public was devouring.