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A Short History of Ancient Rome by Pascal Hughes is exactly what it purports to be.  Hughes does an excellent job charting the history of Rome’s founding by Romulus in the eighth century BC to the date typically cited as the end of the Roman empire in 476 AD with the incursion of the Huns into the West of Europe.

We are not part of the roughly half of Americans who believe in ghosts. (Various surveys report between 40-60% of Americans believe in ghosts.) So, when US Ghost Adventures contacted us to see if we’d like a complimentary ghost tour in one of several cities, my natural inclination was to decline. But then I thought, what the heck, why not?! Neither of us has ever gone on a ghost tour before, so we had no preconceived idea of what to expect.

The full title of this new book is Tom Paine’s War: The Words that Rallied a Nation and the Founder for our Time. This full title explains Kelly’s two focus areas for the book: first, bringing to life the important and under-valued role Paine played in the American Revolutionary War; and second, addresses why this story is important in our modern era and why Paine isn’t more well known and studied as a true founder of the United States.

This was truly an entirely hiking-filled vacation, and the highlights were the gorgeous views of the lake within the park and surrounding mountains, particularly from Molly’s Knob, offering a sweeping view.

Big Nobody follows Constance, a half-Greek, half-British adolescence during her coming-of-age era in the late 1970s.  We first meet Connie as she struggles to find a way to live with her father, who she blames for the death of her mother and brothers that has occurred in the recent past.  She has nicknamed her father The Fat Murderer and has a vivid interior life where she converses with David Bowie and Marc Bolan, whose posters dot her bedroom walls. 

Smith Mountain Lake State Park is located in southwest-ish Virginia, about 40 minutes east of Roanoke, 2.5 hours southwest of Richmond, 3 hours north of Charlotte. The lake itself is a man-made reservoir of immense proportions. The shoreline measures 500 miles and the lake is 40 miles across. In fact, in 2023, Travel + Leisure magazine, called Smith Mountain Lake (SML to locals) the “Lake Tahoe of the East”. The shoreline is dotted with homes for both locals and vacationers and is a popular spot for people to rent houses.

Fallingwater Cascades, located off of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Bedford County, is located just a few miles north of the popular Peaks of Otter area. This trail is 1.0 miles in total length (down and back) and runs along the cascades with pretty views of the cascades themselves and small pools of mountain water. The trail is entirely a descent to the base of the cascades followed by an ascent back up with the total elevation change of about 365 feet. This area is particularly pretty in the spring and fall.

Abbott Lake Trail is located about 50 minutes north of Roanoke, VA, in Bedford in the heart of the area known as Peaks of Otter, and is located right off of the Blue Ridge Parkway. For more information on the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway, which travels through Virginia and North Carolina.

Before her epic Icelandic journey begins, Valerie Tobruk is first a toll collector, a job that is often hidden in plain sight. While Valerie enjoys her short interactions with her customers and even forms relationships with her regulars, most just pass right through her booth and pay her no time of day. In this way, Valerie is both deeply part of the world and tucked away from it, a dichotomy that seems a perfect fit for her personality.

Sharp Top Mountain Trail is labelled - appropriately - as strenuous. The trail does flatten out a little bit at points along the way but it is a steep upward climb, gaining over 1300 feet in elevation in 1.5 miles. Large segments are basically carved rock stairs. One way to think about this in a different scale: this is basically like climbing 130 flights of stairs over a 1.5 mile distance.