Least-Heat Moon

When you spend two months away from what you describe as your home base, it is a little different than taking what most would describe as a trip. You have decided to live somewhere else for a while. You do many of the same things you would do when at home because seeking new adventures on a daily basis is not the way most of us live our lives. Cindy might disagree as she sees daily life as an adventure, but I am not the same live each day to the fullest type person.

I spend about the same amount of time here reading and writing I would spend at home. The coffee shop changes and the route to walk there is different and warmer, but the core activities are very similar.

I have been listening to Blue Highways a book by William Least-Heat Moon I first read several decades ago. There are so many books I want to read that I have already purchased that rereading a book from "the early years" is very rare. Blue highways refers to secondary roads which at the time the book was written were blue on paper maps. My appreciation of the book is based on the quality of the author's ability to write very interesting prose telling the stories of his adventures linking to my own interest in travel by car for extended trips. Finding the book again as an audiobook available from one of the libraries I frequent was great.

One of the interesting things about my second exploration of this book is the addition of all of the life experiences I have accumulated since I first read this book. Least-Heat Moon's route roughly followed the perimeter of the country and he describing passing through some of the territory I have experienced. During this listen I appreciated his description of his journey through northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. I have walked across the origins of the Mississippi at the location he described and the town of Danbury is northern Wisconsin is the closest town to our Wisconsin lake home. He describes Danbury as dismal, but he may have passed through at night this time of year when he should have been in Hawaii.

I highly recommend this author's writing. His capacity to tell stories about the places he travels through is a gift I greatly admire. He has a way of describing people tied to their places in the country that offers many lessons.