This is my favorite plant guide to have when I am trying to identify Northwest native species. With sharp photographs and interesting descriptions, this book will help not only identify the plants but will give you some additional information on each specific plant, such as where it tends to grow and how it may be used.

Most people I know have entertained the thought at one time or another of chucking it all and going to live in a cabin in the woods. Richard Proenneke actually did just this in 1968, building himself a cabin out of spruce logs, building his own furniture, starting a little garden, canoeing and walking everywhere he went, documenting the wildlife, and making journal entries often. His bush pilot friend Babe Alsworth would show up sporadically with supplies for him and take his letter back out of the woods to be posted. This is a selection from the journals of his first year. I stayed up way too late one night finishing this one.

For an off-the beaten path road trip around the Pacific Northwest, not much beats this set of maps as a guide. The covers of my late '90s version have all manner of spilled tea and road-wear and with imminent binding failure after all of this abuse I may just have to buy a new one soon. I have found these invaluable for locating alternate routes, sometimes amounting to a one-lane dirt road over a mountain with turnouts every now and then. I have found old railroad grades with this, as well as ghost towns. You'll probably abuse yours and have to buy a new one in ten years, too.

This is the sketchbook version of one of my favorite little types of journals for taking on trips. The elastic band holds it shut between sketches, and there's a little pocket in the back from scraps of paper and such.