Publisher's Synopsis
With a spirit of exploration rarely seen in modern times, Ben Long and his wife, Karen Nichols, quit their jobs, sold their house, and set out to follow in the footsteps of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Their quest: To look at the plants and animals encountered during the Corps of Discovery's great endeavor and report on how nature is doing after two centuries of "civilization." Long's voice is appealing, and readers will have no trouble imagining themselves traveling along with the couple in their fully loaded Subaru. Long and Nichols drove from Montana to the Pacific, checking on Lewis and Clark's natural "discoveries" along the way: prairie dogs, cutthroat trout, sharptail grouse, coyotes, beavers, bison, grizzlies, whitebark pine, even a dinosaur fossil. Everywhere, they encounter another persistent force of nature human nature. This highly readable travelogue is informed by humor, history, the sacred journals of Lewis and Clark, and the vivid experience of discovery.
