Updating

Okay, so blogging has been glacially slow lately- several reasons for that, not least of which has been some crippling back pain. One of these days I really will buy a laptop so that I can blog whenever I'm lying down! Anyway, I've been doing a bit of reading, trying to learn some new things and generally been taking it easy. Strong medication and motivation do not go hand in hand.

I'm all but done with the Lewis and Clark book Undaunted Courage (it really does take me this long to read a book these days- any time I pick it up I generally end up with one of my kids in my lap asking questions and wanting to look at the pictures) and I've ordered a few more exploration tomes- Nathaniel Philbrick's In The Heart of the Sea and Sea of Glory (if I like these then I'll most certainly be getting his book Mayflower too) and a history book- The Oxford History of the American People: Prehistory to 1789. I'm growing increasingly interested in very early American history- the first settlers and explorers (next up will probably be a book on Coronado) and then back to about 12,000 years before; North America had an incredible range of megafauna. Jefferson actually believed that the Lewis and Clark expedition might discover giant ground sloths and mammoths in the interior. In addition to that there used to be dire wolves, rhinos, cheetahs, camels, giant beavers (about 8 feet long) and sabre-tooth cats. Problem is I'm having a hard time finding a decent book on this topic. I'm interested in what the environment was like then, what the newly arrived humans were like and, of course, how the creatures present fared. Suggestions please!

If you happen to have read A Savage Kingdom by Benjamin Woolley let me know if you liked it.

Imagine following the du Toit trail in 12,000BC!