Travels with D'Arcy "To Alaska and Back" (Paperback or Softback)

This is a true story. TRAVELS WITH D'ARCY "To Alaska and Back" serves as a classic reminder there's a state in our union as beautiful as God, and as American as scrimshaw carvings. It's legend. And it's far away, but you can drive there via the Alcan Highway through the Yukon. This journey offers a unique glimpse of our 49^th State's future by examining its past. This 8,599-mile trip to 'Alaska State Park' from Summerland, California is a splendid odyssey, revealing a land both brazen and breathtaking, where glaciers carve mountains out of stone and the wind howls voices spirited from the past.

This is so much more than a travelogue. D'Arcy and I went in search of the Alaskan creed. The creed is the unspoken law of the land, where choices are made in silence and only judged by your conscience. Do you stop for the man in the broken-down RV, or do you keep on driving? What if it's a woman? What if it's a band of Tlingit Indians? What if it's a dog running to its master with an arm in its mouth, covered with red flannel? Do you call the police or keep on trucking? These are the choices people make according to their creed. It's not the words that define you; it's the actions you take when no one is looking.

Last summer was the journey of a lifetime. Our plan was to head north to visit my old college roommate who lived in his cabin with the moose rack above the door in the Wrangell Mountains. Talk about characters. D'Arcy and I use alternating voices that engage all the senses and create an intimate rhythm that allows the story to unfold one adventure after the other. It all happens in a world of wilderness, partnership, and resilience. And the ability to laugh and say, "I love you!".

It gave me a chance to gather the memories I'd collected over fifty years of loving Alaska, and It felt like I'd struck literary gold.