Program 495: National Parks Dinner Party; The Great Southwest; Utah's Craziest Bike Ride

Author Terry Tempest Williams describes the various "personalities" of a dozen US national parks, and examines each one's contributions to the American character. Then historian Flannery Burke tells us how Arizona and New Mexico came to embody what we now think of as The Great Southwest. And travel writer Christopher Solomon enjoys getting dusty on a mountain-bike tour across southern Utah.

• Terry Tempest Williams, author of "The Hour of Land"  (Sarah Crichton Books)
• Historian Flannery Burke, author of "A Land Apart: The Southwest and the Nation in the Twentieth Century" (Univ. of Arizona Press)
• Travel writer Christopher Solomon

• The New York Times reviewed "The Hour of Land" when it was first released in hardback in June 2016.
• Jetsonorama is the street art name of Dr. Chip Thomas, whose murals appear across the Navajo reservation.  
• The Southwest Museum of the American Indian, on Mt. Washington in Los Angeles, was founded by Charles Fletcher Lummis, and is now part of the Autry Museum of the American West.
• Christopher Solomon wrote about his mountain bike ride across Utah in the June 2017 edition of Outside magazine.
• Christopher's bike tour was organized by Lizard Head Cycling Guides, based in Ophir, Colorado, and offered "in the spirit of Edward Abbey." 
• Chris also writes on current environmental topics for Outside, including the damage mountain bikes can cause when accessing sensitive wilderness areas. 

Northern lights I saw
New Mexico, March '03
Sun storms drove them South
— Kollin Luman, Portland, Oregon

Sun descends — wind gusts.
Sugar cane sways, gilt-green in
ephemeral blaze.
— Lyn Gerner, Wailuku, Hawai'i

How to get back up
To the top of old Quebec?
Ah, the funicular!
— Mark Coen, Beverly, Massachusetts