Lost Angel Walkabout: One Traveler's Tales (Lost Angel Travel Series) - Softcover

Ballou, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1449971520 ISBN 13: 9781449971526

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010

Synopsis

Be inspired by escapes of this daring traveler who pushes beyond fears. Thrilling tuck you in tales that draw the reader in with beautifully descriptive passages. Whether you are planning your own journey, escaping from your couch, or want to inspire a young trail blazer Lost Angel Walkabout provides fuel for adventure.Awaken your senses with thrilling tales of an intrepid soul’s search for beauty in the wilds. Linda Ballou embraces life and draws readers into her adventures with vivid descriptions that make you feel you are traveling along side her. She brings an intelligent meditation on nature in richly detailed, often poetic stories.

About this title

From the Author

     Beautiful Obsession
 
 
In my fit forties, I was operating under the illusion that I could do anything and felt invincible. Full swing into my second childhood, I owned my horse and was conquering cross country courses. That's right!  We were jumping over every hurdle in our path, careening around mountain trails and splashing though creeks. It was thrilling to be fulfilling all my horsey fantasies.
 
Then one day, while practicing our rough version of dressage, I felt a tingling in my lower back. Within days this sensation manifested itself into a crippling condition that left me crawling from the bed to the fridge on my knees. Diagnosis--garden variety herniated disc. For six weeks I struggled to keep mind-bending pain at bay. I read numerous books on how to deal with chronic pain. I wrote the first draft of Cowgirl Jumped Over the Moon, an exercise that kept my mind away from the nagging nerve pain and fulfilled childhood dreams cut short. In the healing process, I realized that I had been pushing my 45-year old body too hard, that I would have to give up full time riding (which meant giving up my mare) and that I needed to re-evaluate my life course.
 
In time, my body healed and I was left with a disciplined physical regime and a higher regard for good health. I decided to combine the things that I love--horses, travel and writing as my path to full expression. My first published articles were all about horses. I used these credits to get travel writing gigs at guest ranches. Throughout my feisty fifties, I enjoyed fantastic outdoor adventures and established myself as a travel writer.
 
Self actualization on so many levels gave me courage to tackle my long buried dream of publishing the novel I'd been working on quietly over a twenty year period. When I lived on Kauai, I became so smitten with great personage of Ka'ahumanu, a childless chiefess who was the favorite wife of Kamehameha the Great, that writing her story became a beautiful obsession. The changing landscape of the publishing world and the opportunities provided through the internet made the realization of my dream possible. In May of 2008 I did it! I published Wai-nani, High Chiefess of Hawai'i-Her Epic Journey. It was like giving birth to an elephant that was ten years over due.

From the Inside Flap

I felt my young nephew Matt's spirit guiding me to the warehouse of Chilkat Guides in Haines, Alaska, just across from the cemetery where he rests. I imagined him wanting me to know the woods intimately as he did and to share the intense beauty of his world with him. Before he drowned, Matt took me for hikes because he knew how much I enjoyed "getting out into it." It was a tender thought I kept hidden from my guides and the ten other guests on the 140-mile journey on the Tatshenshini, or Raven's River, that begins in the Yukon Territory of Canada and ends at Dry Bay in the Gulf of Alaska.
Scamp Raven is considered by the Tlingit Indians of Southeast Alaska to be the seat of all wisdom and the creator of all things. He assembled the earth out of mud and rocks, and then he stole the sun, moon, and stars away from his grandfather, Nass Raven, so that "the people" would have light.  Raven also stole water from his brother-in-law, Petrel, who had it hidden from the world. He then dropped it from his beak to form the powerful Tatshenshini-Alsek Rivers and all the tributaries that merge to create a vast watershed hidden from time. I was adopted into the Raven clan by the Tlingits in the Chilkat River valley when I was a teen living in Haines. Whenever I hear the clock, clock, clock of this scrappy bird, I imagine that he is speaking to me, guiding me away from danger.
All meandering thought came to a halt when we entered a gorge where tall buttresses crowd the river into a chute. I could hear the roar of white water ahead. First a few light splashes then dips into troughs with waves that landed squarely on the bow.
"Bail! Bail! Bail!" yelled, veteran river-rafter, Margaret, holding tightly to my life vest to prevent me from being washed overboard. Big waves were fast filling  the raft  with water. While wrestling with the bailing buckets, I did the splits on the slick rubber boat bottom and fell backward.
"Get up. We are going to swamp! Margaret cried in exasperation. One hour into our peaceful glide on the Tatshenshini and we had hit a perfect storm. Our three oarboats loaded down with supplies for the 9-day expedition into an ice-age wilderness were top-heavy and vulnerable to a tip-over. Brian, one of our three guides, expertly steered us through the gorge that funnels the river into a gauntlet of white water. This rite of passage has to be faced before you can relax on the mostly peaceful glide through the Fairweather, St. Elias, and Brabazon mountain ranges.
The frothy brew through Bear Bite Falls, the Eye of the Needle and M&M Falls are not to be taken lightly. The swift flowing water of the Tatshenshini is 34 degrees, in which hypothermia takes hold in about three minutes. My nephew's young heart stopped beating suddenly when he took a lone night swim in the frigid waters of the Chilkat River. Should you fall into this river, your clothing will act as a filter for the glacier-silt-laden water and the weight of gathered "rock flour" could pull you under. The curvaceous gray lady is lined with sweepers, downed trees that can trap an unlucky swimmer beneath log jams. My mantra: "Stay in the Boat." Above all else on this trip, I did not want to make a mistake that would put me in the water.
The Tatshenshini is a powerful shape-shifting torrent that begins in the drier altitudes of Chilkat Summit at 3,400 feet and drops to sea level, where it cuts through the largest non-polar ice field on earth. Twenty glaciers muscle their way through the mountains to meet the water's edge. It provides a wildlife corridor large enough to accommodate our greatest predator: the grizzly. The salmon-choked waters of the Americas' longest free-flowing river provides sustenance for a myriad of mammals and 128 species of birds, including Matt's clan totem, the bald eagle. I believe the ancient voice of Raven called me here so that I might know my roots in the wild and come to understand the power the north-country has over me.
Once through the rapids, we hit a serene stretch of the river where we floated at about six knots beneath indigo skies. I put my rubber-booted feet up the side of the raft, leaned back against the stack of supplies and pulled out my bino's out for some serious birding. A giant kingfisher played tag with us for about five miles, while Bald eagles scoped out the intruders on their river from a safe distance. White clouds mushroomed between snow-streaked spires in the distance. A scarlet sash of river beauty, or dwarf fireweed, and purple beach peas brightened the gray river bank. I spotted a brownie as he ducked into the alders and cottonwood. Horsetail fern, a feathery affair tough enough to survive where glaciers have removed top soil, filled the forest understory. We were heading for still younger country, scraped clean and reconfigured by shifting earthquakes and glaciers on the move.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1449971520
• ISBN 13: 9781449971526
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 216