A Few Memorable Days

Philip Larson

Description

A Few Memorable Days relates the author’s adventures, traveling to some of the world’s most inaccessible places.

Philip Larson began delivering newspapers in his hometown of Boone, Iowa, when he was ten years old. One afternoon while walking his paper route he looked up in the sky and noticed a narrow, white cloud developing behind an airplane. Although he had never seen a contrail before, he knew what it was. What he did not know is how the advancements in jet aircraft would revolutionize travel and enable a young Iowa paper carrier to one day explore all seven continents. He hiked, canoed, rode motorcycles, and traveled in automobiles, planes, trains, and ships.

In a fascinating chronicling of his travels from 1969 to 2019, Philip Larson shares a glimpse into his global adventures as he journeyed from the frozen lakes of arctic Canada to the outback of Australia to the barren Namib desert of western Africa as well as many more destinations. As he leads other travel adventurers through his vast experiences, Larson details a frigid New Year’s Eve camping trip in northern Minnesota, an one-hundred and eighty-mile trek on the back trails of Nepal, a memorable campsite in Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula as a typhoon blew in from the Sea of Okhotsk, and much more.

A Few Memorable Days is the travel log of an experienced adventurer as he explored the world over five decades in some of its most inaccessible places.

Sujets

• Biography
• Motorcycling
• Trek
• Canoeing
• Autobiography
• Trekking

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 24 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665745574
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A FEW MEMORABLE DAYS
 
 
 
 
PHILIP LARSON
 
 
 
 
 
Copyright © 2023 Philip Larson.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.
 
Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-4558-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-4556-7 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-4557-4 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023911147
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 07/20/2023
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To my mother and father, who always supported and encouraged my wanderings, even when they feared some trips might be dangerous. And to the men and women I encountered along the way, who made these days much more interesting and enjoyable.
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
New Year’s Eve Camping
In the Boma with the Animals
Trekking in Nepal
Days in Lhasa
A Shorter Walk in the Andes
A Special Bull and a Special Farm
Seasons on the Equator
Havana’s Cars
Cigars for Aristocrats
Patagonia
Patagonian Boat Ride
A Different High Place
Trekking the Dolomites
A Perspective from Europe
Checkpoint Charlie
The Dogs of Paris
Mexico on a Motorcycle
Motorcycling in Central America
Bad Times on a Bike
Victoria Island Canoeing
The Polar Bears of Churchill
The Indian Pacific’s Crossing of Australia
Trans-Siberian Railway
More Russia
Looking for Nessie
The Hotel Lobby
The Dempster and Dalton Highways
Skelton Coast Highway
Bush Pilots of Alaska
The Road’s End
Moon Visitors
Cities I Landed In, Took off From, Or Both
PREFACE
When I was ten years old, I began delivering newspapers. I carried the Des Moines Tribune to forty houses in my hometown of Boone, Iowa. The Tribune was the Register and Tribune Company’s afternoon publication. Together, they were known as the papers that Iowa depended on. That didn’t last. The Tribune ceased to be published in 1982. But when I carried it, it was a thriving afternoon daily.
One day as I walked my route, I saw a narrow, white cloud developing behind an airplane. I had never seen it before, but I knew what it was. It was the contrail that the new generation of aircraft left behind them. I watched as the plane passed quickly overhead. I had no way of knowing how advancements in jet aircraft would revolutionize travel and enable a young paper carrier in Central Iowa to visit countries throughout the world. Yet it did just that.
The travel accounts that follow relate the experiences I encountered during those visits. They occurred over many years. Sometimes I traveled alone. I was alone in 1969 when I spent forty-nine days riding a motorcycle around Alaska and in 1996 when I toured Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. I also made the trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad by myself in 1982, and I visited much of Europe alone.
My father was a railroad engineer. Both my parents accompanied me in 1988 on the Indian Pacific as we crossed Australia. Many friends joined on other trips. Roger McCoy, whom I met when we were in third grade, went along on numerous adventures: trekking 185 miles in Nepal in 1979, crossing the Peruvian Andes on foot in 1996, canoeing down an Arctic river in Canada’s Victoria Island in 2000, touring Ecuador in 2005, and photographing wildlife in Africa. Terry Ferry, another friend from my school days in Boone, accompanied me on trips to South Africa, Scotland, Italy, Peru, and other destinations.
Wherever I traveled and whomever I traveled with, I found the places, cultures, and people fascinating. I hope these accounts convey some of the feelings I experienced when I lived those adventures.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While putting this book together, I journeyed into the past. It took many hours of going over trip journals, reviewing and editing previously written articles, and writing new stories. It also involved help from others. Mike McCoy (an author of numerous books) and Ed Rood (a newspaper publisher) read the entire manuscript and offered suggestions. My sister, Dr. Jeanne Qvarnstrom, also read the work and provided helpful advice. I thank them.
The late Robert and Jeannie Schaub employed me for twenty-three years as a freelance journalist for their newspaper. They never gave me an assignment, but they always published my stories, whether they involved being chased down a highway by an elephant in South Africa’s Kruger National Park or describing the work of a local conservationist creating a wildlife habitat. Their support was greatly appreciated.
Finally, I want to acknowledge Jacksonville University’s late Chancellor Emeritus Dr. Frances Bartlett Kinne. Fran and my father grew up together and remained close during their lives. When Fran visited Iowa, she always hosted a dinner for family members, and she considered us family. Over the years, my father sent her my writings. I last saw Fran at a family dinner in 2019 when she was 102 years old. She hosted the event with the energy of someone half her age. Near the end of the day, she approached and accusingly said, “You haven’t written that book yet. You must write a book. I want you to promise me—promise me now—you will do that.” I couldn’t escape making the promise. A month before her 103 rd birthday, she passed away.
In “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” Robert Service wrote, “a promise made, is a debt unpaid.” Now I have paid that debt.
NEW YEAR’S EVE CAMPING
 
Philip Larson, left, and Mike McCoy study a map of their route in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
The fierce wind that forced us to move camp in the late afternoon had subsided. The wilderness became silent, inky black, and cold. A few stars shone dimly overhead, and a faint hint of the aurora borealis marked the northern horizon. But even with that, the night was overwhelmingly dark. The three of us stood on skis, staring up at the endless void. Nothing in that frozen night indicated that other life existed. We seemed totally alone. Each of us thought of other places we could have been on this New Year’s Eve night. Then we turned and skied back up the river to where our camp sat sheltered in a grove of fir trees. Here was protection from the brutal cold.
Our camp was in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of northern Minnesota. It was not a hospitable place in winter. Temperatures dropped as low as minus fifty degrees on some nights. Frigid arctic winds drove the windchill factor even lower. The snow cover deepened with each fresh snowfall. It was a very unlikely vacation spot. Snow had to be melted for drinking water and for mixing with dehydrated foods. Relieving oneself was a dreadfully unpleasant experience in that cold.
Even so, Mike and Roger McCoy and I had gone there. We skied in. Warm down sleeping bags and extra clothing necessary to combat the intense cold had been added to the backpacks. The human body burned extra calories when maintaining body heat in that weather. The food that supplied us with that energy was packed too. The full packs were heavy. Carrying them was burdensome but very necessary.
We skied over frozen lakes and rivers. The snow cover on the wide exposed lakes had been swept thin by winds. Skiing in the shallow snow was easy and fast. We followed the zigzagging course of the waterways ever deeper into the quiet wilderness. In some places, the channels narrowed to the width of a small stream and then abruptly expanded into a flat, white plain, a mile or more wide. Trees covered the land and stretched away from shore. They extended back over rolling hills and flat marshy bottoms. They were white and bowed from the snow covering their branches.
Occasionally, we came upon turbulent water that had not yielded to the intensity of the cold. Here, we were forced back onto the land. In the shelter of the trees, the snow lay deep and powdery. Skiing took more effort here, and despite the cold, we found ourselves sweating. Sweating in such conditions could be the start of real problems, so we were forced to remove packs, peel off a layer of outer clothing, re-shoulder the packs, and proceed. Soon we were down to heavy wool sweaters. Then the open water ended. We were once again on the frozen lakes and exposed to the wind. We put the shirts, vests, and windbreakers back on. We had placed more distance and difficult skiing between civilization and us.
We skied in silence. The only sound came from the rhythmic cadence of our skis as they shuffled through the snow. My eyes scanned the frozen countryside while my thoughts went to a line from Robert Service’s “The Spell of the Yukon.” He described the land during the northern winter as being “locked tight as a drum.” That seemed a fitting description of the area we were passing through. We crossed many tracks on our trek—wolves, deer, moose, river otters, bobc