River Horse: A Voyage Across America Audiobook (Free)

With this abridgement of River-Horse, the pre-eminent chronicler of American back highways — that has given us the classics Blue Highways and Prairyerth — recounts his singular voyage through American waters from sea to sea. Along the way, he offers a lyrical and ceaselessly fascinating shipboard perspective on the country and its rivers, lakes, canals, and landscapes. Brimming with history, drama, and wisdom, River-Horse belongs in the pantheon of American travel literature.

In his most about River Horse: A Voyage Across America ambitious journey ever, Heat-Moon sets off aboard a little sail boat he named Nikawa (‘river horse’ in Osage) from the Atlantic at NY Harbor in hopes of entering the Pacific near Astoria, Oregon. He and his partner, Pilotis, struggle to cover some five thousand watery kilometers — a lot more than any other cross-country river traveller has ever managed — often following in the wakes of our most famous explores, from Henry Hudson to Lewis and Clark.

En route, the voyagers confront massive floods, submerged stones, dangerous weather, and their own doubts about if they can complete the trip. However the hard days yield up matchless pleasures: strangers large with help and eccentric tales, scenery unchanged since Sacagawea saw them, riverscapes flowing with a lively past, as well as the growing belief that efforts to safeguard our lands and waters are starting to pay back. And, throughout its course, the expedition likes coincidences therefore breathtaking as to suggest the intervention of a divine and witty Providence.

Teeming with humanity and high adventure, Heat-Moon’s account can be an unsentimental and original arteriogram of our nation at the edge of the Millennium.