Spread Your Wings

Since I'm experience difficulties with the computer that I use to scan, upload and edit my photos, there will be no Way Back Machine today. No photos either.

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to encourage you to step outside your comfort zone of blog reading. We seem to get caught up in a similar stream of subject matter, whether it be style blogs, or family blogs or craft blogs. I love to take that web surfboard and jump the waves to the left or right of where I usually run. In the course of those little surfing trips I've found some fascinating reads.

I'd like to suggest reading White Crow Walking. I've been reading Jesse White Crow's adventures for three years. He has walked across America alone. The blurb at the top of his blog states:

"My solo walk across America began in Maine. I walked for nearly 3 years carrying a backpack and facing countless dangers, as well as met wonderful people I could have never made it without. From bullets to bears I moved through mountains of snow and across burning desert country. The end result will be a book, and the fruition of a childhood dream. This is a blog from the field with rough stories about my steps along the way."

...rough stories about his steps along the way. Rough stories??? I swear if these are just rough ramblings then the book is destined to be a best seller. Many times when reading his entries I would be stopped in my tracks by a sentence. How can someone craft a sentence so perfect and lean, without a wasted syllable or thought? And he wasn't sitting in a nice comfy office. He was jotting entries along the road, using the computers at public libraries. His thought process is deeply influenced by American Indian themes of nature and man.

One day I read one of his sentences and felt compelled to write it down and tuck it into my bedside table. I often read it at night before I go to bed and dream about crafting words such as this.

"In a minute the coyote is over by the dry creek bed singing it's painful woes to a night that makes all of creation wish they'd mastered fire."

- Jesse White Crow

NOTE: For further reading in this genre try -

William Least Heat-Moon - "River Horse" or "Blue Highways". Blue highway refers to the color with which the mapmakers denote secondary highways on a map. It's those highways the Heat-Moon traveled in preparation for writing the book. "River Horse" is a horse of a different color. It's a riveting story of his journey from coast-to-coast over America's streams and rivers.

Bill Bryson - "The Lost Continent" is a irreverent look at the author's travels across America after being overseas for twenty years. Written in 1994, much of it would be considered politically incorrect in this day. No matter, it's sharp and funny.

What's your favorite off-the-beaten path blog?