Don’T Leave Home Without This Book

I have such good news for all you wanderlust bibliophiles. There’s help out there.

You no longer have to deny one “spot” that wants to be scratched for another that’s ready to burst into a rash. There’s a travel book that allows you to indulge both longings.

“The Used Book Lover’s Guide to the Pacific Coast States,” meaning Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii and Alaska, is one of seven regional guides to more than 7,900 used-book dealers in the United States and Canada.

The guide is billed as “the book booklovers don’t leave home without.”

Authors David and Susan Siegel, who began Book Hunters Press for something to do in their retirement years, have visited thousands of book stores, including 11 in Spokane. Maps are included for each shop, which is a terrific idea. And, with each listing is a “Comment” describing what visitors can expect. So, if you’re going to Oregon (to watch the whales, for instance), the book will provide all used-book shops between here and there, listed alphabetically by cities or towns, and then alphabetically by stores.

The book tells how and when to reach dealers, complete with addresses and telephone numbers. There’s a “Speciality Index,” so you can zoom right to your type of literature. Other “Used Book Lover’s Guides” cover the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, Central States, New England and Canada.

“The Used Book Lover’s Guide to the Pacific Coast States” is available at 2nd Look Books, 2829 E. 29th, for $18.95; or through the publisher for $19.95, plus $3.50 for shipping and handling. For more information, call (914) 245-6608, or visit the Web site: www.bookhunterpress.com.

Spring is coming

Tiny, delicate wildflowers will soon bloom, carpeting mountainsides with their spectacular beauty.

“Green Means Go: Spring in Glacier Country” is how the Glacier Country Regional Tourism Commission describes the season that’s on its way.

Not only do flowers perk up, but animals answer their internal alarm clock and rouse themselves from hibernation. Now’s the time to plan a stay in Bigfork, Mont.

Glacier National Park is open year round “and boasts a matchless spring,” the regional tourism commission says.

Montana’s Glacier Country consists of Flathead, Glacier, Lake, Lincoln, Mineral, Missoula, Ravalli and Sanders counties.

For a free travel guide, call (800) 338-5072 or visit its Web site: www.glacier.visitmt.com.

AAA four diamonds

The best of the best of Washington’s lodgings and restaurants are rewarded with four diamonds by AAA judges in the motor club’s “Washington/Oregon Tourbook.”

Of the 26,500 AAA-rated lodgings, only 3 percent - 800 - receive four diamonds. And 475 of the 11,000 restaurants are granted that top prize.

Judges evidently didn’t venture very far east of the Cascades. Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop, Wash., is the only establishment on the mountain’s dry side to receive royal recognition.

Competition must be fierce since most businesses are repeat winners, year after year after year. That includes Seattle’s Westin Hotel, which has drawn four diamonds for 19 consecutive years.

Other longtime lodge winners include the Alexis Hotel (17 years) and Inn at the Market (15), both in downtown Seattle; the Woodmark Hotel on Lake Washington (10), Guest House Log Cottages in Greenbank (14) and the Salish Lodge and Spa in Snoqualmie (10). The restaurant list includes Seattle’s Fullers (11) and the Georgian Room (11), the Salish Lodge Dining Room (9) and the Sun Mountain Lodge Dining Room (9).