Backpacking The Americas, Prudhoe Bay To Antarctica

"Stranded In Chicken,"  A Backpack Travel Book
 by David Rice 

Color Cover, Black and White Interior Photos

Two Years Of Backpacking the Americas, From Antarctica To Prudhoe Bay

Available through Amazon Books

David Rice, Two years of 

backpacking in the Americas

David's account of his travels is
available through Amazon Books

 Excerpts from the book,
"Stranded In Chicken"
By David Rice

     I live in the Ozarks of Missouri where I take care of a 100 year old house in the countryside. I tend a garden while caring for the old farm and I take a rent from my house in the city.

I have always loved the hills of Springfield in late winter and although I live comfortably in the rural house for most of the year, at times I get restless and feel the need to travel.

Since this account is a confession of sorts, to tell you the truth, travel is more obsession with me  than need.

Amazon Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews From Amazon

Fun to read!

By Amazon Customer on April 21, 2014

This book is fun to read. A light hearted and interesting account of the author's backpacking trip south from his home in Missouri all the way to Antarctica. He then goes north to Prufhoe Bay.
I found myself envying his courage and, while I could never pitch a tent in Torres del Paine or the Alaskan wilderness as he did, a little part of me would love to try. Be you ardent backpacker or armchair adventurer you wont be able to put this inspirational and entertaining book down.

You Pisceans and Sagittarians will, I hope, empathize with one born under the sign of the compass rose. I have been around the world more than once and would love to do it again, this time staying completely on the ground.

My tale is one of the traveler. While I neither boast nor apologize, this is my story and for convenience rather than contrition, I will call it the confessions of a traveler.

Garden

The warm winds across the prairie in March usually start the feeling. I will be out planting a vegetable garden and the sun's warm breath comes on the back of my neck like the soft caress of a kitten. I know, however, that before June ends, this kitten will become a tiger that will claw up the dust in my dooryard and scorch the grass and garden beyond my toleration. By July, blistering heat will smother the hills and I will long to be somewhere else. My thoughts will be all about air conditioning and unfortunately my old house has none.

A hot afternoon in April had me sitting on the porch wondering where I was going to go next. I have made many long trips throughout the world and I know that to make an extended trip I would need to arrange many details. Africa kept coming to mind as I read the guidebooks. I started to make plans for a trip to the southern parts of Africa.

Details

First I arranged to visit my doctor and get the needed shots. Rabies topped the list because of the wild dogs in Africa. Next was yellow fever, hepatitis, and tetanus.

I called friends and asked them to collect my mail and to look in occasionally on the two houses for me while they harvested my plot of onions, carrots, and garlic.

I needed a new passport and ordered one right away when I realized that I didn't have many free pages and there could be a several month waiting period.

After many nights through April on the porch looking over itineraries and Lonely Planet guidebooks, I made up my mind; I would soon be hiking in the southern parts of Africa.

The month of May smothered the land with sticky heat and as May neared its end, I made arrangements to leave. On the first day of June, I went to the Greyhound bus terminal and bought a ticket.

Two years through the Americas, Antarctica to Prudhoe Bay

Changes

Change rules the traveler and the traveler rules change. Freedom is the air that I breathe and the world seems like my back yard. My mother must have swaddled me in a Rand McNally bunting because a map brings me new life. Change is part of that excitement, new places, new people, new customs, new dress, new food, and new music. And the freedom to change itineraries is at the heart of it all.

I leaned back in my seat on the bus and watched as Missouri sped by the window. I thought back to those nights on the porch of the old farmhouse when I planned my trip to Africa.

As it turned out I did not need to worry about rabies, Africa had faded from my plans. For the next eight months I would take a very long bus ride. A drastic change of plans, yes, but this is the confession of a traveler and that is what a traveler does; a traveler is free to change plans at any moment.

I would leave the hot winds of Springfield behind me and travel for the better part of the next year but I would not be going to Africa. I would instead head south and take an extended trip aboard countless local and long-haul buses on an eight-month tour of South America. I vowed to head inexorably south and I would not stop until the roads ran out.

Indeed the roads did end at a dock in the southern reaches of Tierra del Fuego. I kept on south by boat, however, and fulfilled the dream of every traveler; I planted my hiking boots on new turf.

I love the passport stamp but at the southern end of my trip only 
the penguins greeted me and they had  no customs inspector

No turf crunched beneath my boots on landing, however; I found only icebergs. Antarctica's treasured stamp on my passport would elude me, at the southern end of my journey, only the penguins greeted me and they had no customs inspector.

Page Two, next post, south on The Pan American Highway

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Amazon Review For "Stranded In Chicken" 

To be on the road again!!

By Jan on June 2, 2014

Verified Purchase

The book whetted my appetite to fulfill my bucket list. I was good to reflect on places visited, with many good 

memories.
It was a reminder that the world is full of things to see and to experience. Cultures to explore, exciting flavors

 to test the palate, and new friends to meet.
However I am not sure I could carry all my hair and face products in a backpack!! So I would need a wee different

mode of travel to see the world.
I wish I could have see color photos of the places visited.
I have recommended the book to my fellow travelers.