restlessfires

Thanks Kathie Bennet for setting up this wonderful tour through Georgia and Florida.

The first few days involved meeting Kathie Bennet, a very helpful contact who arranged our visits throughout Georgia and Florida. After recovering from daylight saving’s time and three hour jet lag, we went to Mercer University Press to meet with my editor, Mark Jolley, Marshall Luttrell and Mary Beth Kowolski. The Press is located on Orange Street and a home stuffed with books and delightful conversation and friendship. We got our large posters there and three boxes of books. Our hotel was the Wingate in Macon. Weather got a little rainy. We visited a lovely three story mansion with marvelous interior designed such as a pre-airconditioning airconditioning system and central heating before coal and oil called the Hay home kept up by the Georgia Historical Trust. In the evening after a dinner with members of the Audobon Society we went to our venue at the Museum of Arts and Culture. Doors were locked and I held an informal seminar with my John Muir’s Route poster under the eve of the entrance until the Director showed up with the keys. It was an experience of adaptability and flexibility. The lecture/reading went quite well, lots of good questions and fine feedback. Mercer University Press sold their books. All in all it was an eventful first day.

Beginning tomorrow, I will provide reports and pictures of my Southern book tour in Georgia and Florida in sharing my enthusiasm for John Muir’s Thousand-Mile Walk based on my book, Restless Fires, Young John Muir’s Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf in 1867-68 published by Mercer University Press.  I’ll be at Macon, Georgia to meet the people at the Press and people helping out with our connections.  It should be a delightful experience.

This is a blog featuring the Thousand-Mile Walk that John Muir took in September, 1867. Muir took this walk to better understand, in his words, “God’s inventions;” the tropical flowers of the South, just two years after the Civil War.  The Blog will also follow the author, Dr. James B. Hunt’s journey in re-counting this story through the South and other parts of the country as he provides lectures, bookstore and library readings based on his published book, Restless Fires, Young John Muir’s Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf in 1867-18 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2012). The purpose of this blog is stimulate interest in both the book and one of the most important hikes John Muir took as a young, twenty-nine year old “wandering botanist,” that powerfully shaped his world view and humankind’s relationship to Nature.

“I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”