Read this in a couple of days. (8 hrs or so) A little dated now, it's been been 7 plus years since it was written. But I really enjoyed it.
The Tecate Journals: Seventy Days on the Rio Grande by Keith Bowden.The Rio Grande is simultaneously one of the most watched and least understood rivers in the world. Some stretches of the Rio pass for endless miles through remote wilderness, boxed in by canyons hundreds of feet high and inhabited by only the hardiest animals and humans. Other stretches go straight through the center of massive urban areas, all but ignored by the thousands of city folks above. It is a national border, a water source, a dangerous rapid with house-sized boulders, a nature refuge, a garbage dump, and a playground, depending on where you are on its 1885-mile course.That's why journalist Keith Bowden decided to become the first person to travel the entire length of the Rio as it forms the border between America and Mexico. This is his fascinating account of the journey by bike, canoe, and raft along one of North America's most overlooked resources. From illegal immigrants and drug runners trying to make it into America to the border patrol working to stop them; from human coyotes -- smugglers who help people navigate their way into the United States-to encounters with real coyotes, mountain lions, and other flora and fauna, Bowden reveals a side of America that few of us ever see. The border between the U.S. and Mexico is, in many ways, a country unto itself, where inhabitants share more in common with fellow riverside dwellers than they do with the rest of their countrymen. With this isolated and colorful micro-world as his backdrop, Bowden not only explores his surroundings, but also tests his inner mettle along some of the most dangerous and remote riparian wilderness in North America.Product Code: 0776Pages: 320ISBN: 978-1-59485-077-6Publisher: Mountaineers BooksPublication date: 8/24/2007
Just finished Pilgrim's Wilderness. Another good read. (work has been slow).
http://www.tomkizzia.com/pilgrims-wilderness.htmlWhen Papa Pilgrim appeared in the Alaska frontier outpost of McCarthy with his wife and fifteen children, his new neighbors had little idea of the trouble they were in for. The Pilgrim Family presented themselves as a shining example of the homespun Christian ideal, with their proud piety and beautiful old-timey musicianship. But their true story ran dark and deep. Within weeks, Papa had bulldozed open a road through the mountains to the new family home at an abandoned copper mine, sparking a tense confrontation with the National Park Service and forcing his ghost town neighbors to take sides in an ever more volatile battle over where a citizen's rights end and the government's power begins.
In Pilgrim's Wilderness, veteran Alaska journalist Tom Kizzia unfolds the remarkable, at times harrowing, story of a charismatic spinner of American myths who was not what he seemed, the townspeople caught in his thrall, and the family he led to the brink of ruin. As Kizzia discovered, Papa Pilgrim was in fact the son of a rich Texas family with ties to Hoover's FBI and strange, oblique connections to the Kennedy assassination and the movie stars of Easy Rider. And as Pilgrim's fight with the government in Alaska grew more intense, the turmoil in his brood made it increasingly difficult to tell whether his sons and daughters were messianic followers or helpless hostages in desperate need of rescue. In this powerful piece of Americana, written with uncommon grace and a zest for adventure, Kizzia uses his unparalleled access to capture the era-defining clash between environmentalists and pioneers ignited by a mesmerizing sociopath who held a town and a family captive.
What are you? Some short sighted trigger puller? - RR3 .
Mr.wRong.