Helpful Score: 6
What an unusual book! I lived in Colorado for about fifteen years, prior to moving to Alabama, so it was interesting to read of the familiar places mentioned in this book. Her wild west accounts made me yearn for the outdoors and better appreciate civilization. I felt like I was traveling along with her. What an adventurous and courageous woman was Lady Bird, amazing!
Helpful Score: 5
Very good copy of an inspiring tale of a woman before her time. A true story of a woman with courage and gumption traveling alone by horseback through the rocky mountain area of Colorado.
Helpful Score: 3
Pretty good book, but slow in places.
Helpful Score: 2
A historic treasure. View US western life in the 1870s through the eyes of an intrepid lady traveler. While her prejudices may seem antiquated - and why not, this was written 140 years ago - her observations are really interesting. She is a very colorful writer and you get a superb picture.
Helpful Score: 2
I normally don't read non-fiction, because I don't find it as intersting, but Isabella Bird's letters are stranger and every bit as exciting as fiction. Her descriptions are remarkable, not to mention accurate, and the people she meets are as diverse as characters out of a novel. I'm so glad I took a chance on this book!
Helpful Score: 1
This book captured my imagination and continues to haunt me with fantasies of traveling Colorado on horseback during the times of the wild west. A very remarkable woman with a talented pen.
This is certainly not a book about an ordinary person. Isabella Bird must have been really, really interesting... it would be amazing to sit and talk with her now.
I'm not familiar with any of the Colorado places she mentions, except Denver, but her descriptions of the scenery are just incredible. She routinely did trips of 20 or more grueling miles in a day on horseback, through practically untracked terrain, just to see a mountain or watch the sunset from a vantage point. The idea of just heading off into the wilderness, with nothing but a vague description of the country ahead and maybe there would be a place to spend the night, is just astonishing to modern ideas. And the description of spending weeks in the cabin in Estes Park, waking up with her bed - inside! - covered with snow, and everything frozen solid...she was one tough cookie but seemed to take it all as normal, and just what you had to put up with. I spent a lot of time reading bits aloud to my husband - "listen to this!". Reading history is one thing, but reading these letters written as she experienced life really made it come alive.
I'm not familiar with any of the Colorado places she mentions, except Denver, but her descriptions of the scenery are just incredible. She routinely did trips of 20 or more grueling miles in a day on horseback, through practically untracked terrain, just to see a mountain or watch the sunset from a vantage point. The idea of just heading off into the wilderness, with nothing but a vague description of the country ahead and maybe there would be a place to spend the night, is just astonishing to modern ideas. And the description of spending weeks in the cabin in Estes Park, waking up with her bed - inside! - covered with snow, and everything frozen solid...she was one tough cookie but seemed to take it all as normal, and just what you had to put up with. I spent a lot of time reading bits aloud to my husband - "listen to this!". Reading history is one thing, but reading these letters written as she experienced life really made it come alive.
history buffs will enjoy this book, a compilation of articles the writer offered to newspapers and magazines while she was traveling the Rocky Mtn West
