Blue Highways

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Blue Highways
Author	William Least Heat-Moon
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject(s)	Travel/Biography
Pages	415
ISBN	ISBN 0-449-21109-6

Blue Highways is an autobiographical book by William Least Heat-Moon, born William Trogdon.

In 1978, after separating from his wife and losing his job as a teacher, Heat-Moon, 38 at the time, decides to take an extended road trip around the United States, sticking to only the "Blue Highways," a term he coins to refer to small, forgotten, out of the way roads connecting rural America (which were drawn in blue on the old style Rand McNally road atlas). He outfits a white van with a bunk, a camping stove, a portable toilet and a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and John Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks. Referring to the Native American resurrection ritual, he christens the van "Ghost Dancing," and embarks on a 3-month soul-searching tour of the United States, wandering from small town to small town, often just because they have interesting names. The book chronicles the 13,000 mile journey and the people he meets along the way, as he steers clear of cities and interstates, avoiding fast food and exploring local American culture. Well-researched and intriguing stories and historical facts are included about each area visited, as well as verbatim conversations with characters such as a born-again Christian hitchhiker, a teenage runaway, a boat builder, a log cabin restorer, a prostitute, fishermen, an American Indian medical student, owners of western saloons and remote country stores, a maple syrup farmer, and Chesapeake island dwellers.