Journal Entry 1 by GoryDetails from Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Wednesday, September 14, 2011

I enjoyed River-Horse, the author's account of his journey from New York to the Pacific by water, very much indeed, and was glad to find this somewhat-battered but still readable paperback at the Used Book Superstore. This one was written when the author was in a rather dark, discontented place (it opens with "Beware the thoughts that come in the night"), and it does seem more distracted than River-Horse, but it's still of interest, beautifully written and full of snapshots of small-town life from the late '70s. The author includes a diagram of "Ghost Dancing", his '75 Econoline van, along with a list of the supplies he's taking along, and several pages of photographs showing people and places along the way. There's a map of his route on the endpages, showing that he pretty much went around the perimeter of the continental US.

In rural Tennessee, trying to find a town called Nameless (!), he comments on local hospitality: "I wondered why it's always those who live on little who are the ones to ask you to dinner." In New Mexico, he discusses the invention of barbed wire. In Montana, he notes: "In a hotel room at the geographical center of North America, a neon sign blinking red through the cold curtains, I lay quietly like a small idea in a vacant mind." In Maine he goes out on a fishing boat. And in New Jersey he hears a story that it was the Pineys, descendants of pirates and smugglers in the Pine Barrens, who were responsible for the destruction of the dirigible "Hindenburg". And that's just a sample... 

Journal Entry 2 by GoryDetails at Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Friday, September 16, 2011

Released 8 mos ago (9/17/2011 UTC) at Nashua, New Hampshire USA

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

This book's going into thegoaliegirl's Travel Narrative bookbox, which will be on its way Saturday. Hope everyone enjoys the selection! 

Journal Entry 3 by tranq1 at Tampa, Florida USA on Saturday, September 24, 2011

Taken from thegoaliegirl's Travel Narrative bookbox. I've been looking for a copy of this one, so I was happy to see it here.