On the Road Again There's no shortage of 20th-century literature about traveling across America in a car. Even William Least Heat-Moon author of River Horse wrote a nonfiction work about his search in a beat-up Ford for himself and America (Blue Highways). But not since the 19th-century adventures of Mark Twain as told in Life on the Mississippi have readers had the chance to vicariously take a journey across America by water rather than by road. River Horse a voyage across America's waterways is a return to a bygone literary tradition. Following in the footsteps of America's greatest explorers from Henry Hudson to Lewis and Clark Heat-Moon traveled around the waterways of America in a 22-foot cruiser boat called Nikawa (Osage for "river horse"). Heat-Moon covers 5 000-plus miles in four months departing from Astoria New York and completing his journey in Astoria Oregon. River Horse completes Heat-Moon's trilogy of explorations of America and the American people which he began with Blue Highways and Prairyerth.
