⇒ PDF Gratis Road Fever A HighSpeed Travelogue Tim Cahill 9780394576565 Books

Road Fever A HighSpeed Travelogue Tim Cahill 9780394576565 Books

Download As PDF : Road Fever A HighSpeed Travelogue Tim Cahill 9780394576565 Books

Road Fever A HighSpeed Travelogue Tim Cahill 9780394576565 Books

I have to say that I loved every word of this book and I can't wait to read it again. Yes, the first 100 pages or so (which is a lot, granted) are kind of slow slogging setting up the financing for their epic road trip, but as someone who always dreamed of creating such a wild project, I still found it fascinating. Most author would skip over this preemptory material and get right down to the trip, but then you'd be sitting there halfway though the book wondering, "Where the heck did the guys get the money and the truck to make such a wild journey?"

Once Cahill and his partner get underway, it's a riot to read just how unprepared (after a year or more of preparing!) they were for some aspects of their trip. And when you read the *scary* accounts of crossing the Andes, all of your fantasies of "Gee, I'd love to go on an adventure like this" simply vanish--they vanish over a 7,000-foot cliff to certain death (in a snow storm).

If you are a devoted nonfiction reader and you can muster the patience to read the backstory of how this trip came to pass, I think you'll really appreciate the time you invested and just how amazing the road trip really was (from Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay). I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that the end of the journey (the U.S. portion) seemed like it was rushed (in the writing) and I wish they had gone into more detail. But I gather that after a month of almost nonstop driving and very little food or sleep, they were both pretty much hallucinating.

Anyway, I love adventure books. Would love to find more like this.


Tags : Road Fever: A High-Speed Travelogue [Tim Cahill] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Tim Cahill reports on the road trip to end all road trips: a journey that took him from Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay,Tim Cahill,Road Fever: A High-Speed Travelogue,Random House,039457656X,404194667,Essays & Travelogues,Adventure and adventurers;United States;Biography.,America;Description and travel.,Authors, American;20th century;Biography.,20th century,Adventure and adventurers,America,Authors, American,Biography,Cahill, Tim,Description And Travel,Journeys,Travel,Travel Essays & Travelogues,United States,BiographyAutobiography

Road Fever A HighSpeed Travelogue Tim Cahill 9780394576565 Books Reviews

Tim Cahill keeps you interested as he recounts the triumphs and travails of his world-record run from the southern tip of Argentina to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska with Garry Sowerby in 1987. Actually Gary Sowerby is the world-record driver, and Cahill describes himself as the "comedy relief." With self-effacing humor, Cahill does not hide his foibles during the trip. He also keeps the tension of the moment as they received bad or conflicting news, encountered problems they hadn't considered, or just got on each others nerves after long hours with little sleep. His character sketches of the people they meet, from German tourists in southern Argentina to locals in Colombia, are funny and well drawn. He includes interesting facts about South and Central America of the late 1980s. The further north they get, the less he has to write about that would appeal to North American readers.

The language can be a bit coarse at times, so it may not be the best reading material for your pre-teen child. It also isn't quite the classic travelogue to stand side by side with Mark Twain's _Roughing It_. Even so, it is a great read for self-described road warriors who like to drive for the adventure of it. The anecdotes about the people they met and the situations they found themselves in make you wish the trip were a little longer.
This is a fun and interesting book. I have bought three copies and passed two along to friends. Cahill does an excellent job of detailing this adventure. A lot of the book deals with the preparatory work that had to be done to establish exactly what had to be done to set the record. Cahill and his partner had to get everything in writing before they did anything, seeming trivialities like where the extreme ends of the road actually are. They had to engage in some monkey business even to be allowed to drive on the northern end of the road to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska.

Something that stood out for me but was never explicitly discussed by the author was that the team didn't seek any publicity at all as they were traveling through Latin America. Then when they were going through the US and Canada, they sought media interviews. I suspect this is because they were worried that Latin American officials would learn about their trip and cause trouble for them.

It also seems odd to me that after entering the U.S., they drove practically straight north to Winnipeg and then west and northwest to Alaska, making a square corner. It seems to me that going northwest across Texas to catch I-25 in Colorado would be the way to go, but the author never explains this choice of route.

The book is a good adventure filled with humor and irony. It's a good, fast read.
This is a very funny, well written travel account by a seasoned travel writer. The narrative follows the record-setting 24-day drive from Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, set with professional long-distance driver Garry Sowerby, mostly following the Pan-American highway. As some reviewers have noted, it takes the book a little while to get going, as it spends a lot of time on the preparation for the trip, and some of that might have been better handled via flashback. Also, in some ways not that much happens on the trip -- Cahill and Sowerby spent a good amount of time preparing for eventualities that never happened -- but Cahill does an excellent job of giving the reader the feel of the trip, and how dangerous certain parts of Central and South American were (and unfortunately still are). All in all, a very well-done book.
I have to say that I loved every word of this book and I can't wait to read it again. Yes, the first 100 pages or so (which is a lot, granted) are kind of slow slogging setting up the financing for their epic road trip, but as someone who always dreamed of creating such a wild project, I still found it fascinating. Most author would skip over this preemptory material and get right down to the trip, but then you'd be sitting there halfway though the book wondering, "Where the heck did the guys get the money and the truck to make such a wild journey?"

Once Cahill and his partner get underway, it's a riot to read just how unprepared (after a year or more of preparing!) they were for some aspects of their trip. And when you read the *scary* accounts of crossing the Andes, all of your fantasies of "Gee, I'd love to go on an adventure like this" simply vanish--they vanish over a 7,000-foot cliff to certain death (in a snow storm).

If you are a devoted nonfiction reader and you can muster the patience to read the backstory of how this trip came to pass, I think you'll really appreciate the time you invested and just how amazing the road trip really was (from Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay). I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that the end of the journey (the U.S. portion) seemed like it was rushed (in the writing) and I wish they had gone into more detail. But I gather that after a month of almost nonstop driving and very little food or sleep, they were both pretty much hallucinating.

Anyway, I love adventure books. Would love to find more like this.