What role does Darleen play in ideas about what to write about, editing, and trip planning?
HOOD: Darleen has great ideas about where to travel and a keen ability to organize for a trip. As a librarian she is a whiz at knowing good books and how to find them. Also, traveling with Darleen has offered a degree of safety that I would not have had otherwise. There is a wonderful essay by Lisa Couturier called “For all the girls who couldn’t walk into the woods” in a book entitled The Hopes of Snakes. She writes about how girls must be careful about going into the woods alone. The same might apply with travel. While we are not girls any longer, but we still have a certain vulnerability, and although I would like to be as fearless as Freya Stark, I don’t think I would be able to travel alone like her in today’s world. BOOKTHINK: Mary, you were a Professor of biology at the University of West Florida. Can you tell me about your life in teaching? HOOD: Yes, I taught the microbiology courses at the University of West Florida from 1974 to 2001 (for almost 30 years) and established a mi
