November, 2004

Ron Lowery is a pilot and writer extraordinary. His personal observations of this expedition are absolutely poetic. Lowery and his son, Alan, built a unique plane from a twin engine kit. They named the plane Cloud Chaser and because it was bright green color it was referred to as the “green canoe in the sky.”

For you airplane buffs, the plane will cruise at 75 mph, stalls at 35 mph, can climb 1,800 feet per minute and can take off with less than two hundred feet of runway.

High-Flying Historian
Mary Walker is also a crackerjack pilot, writer, active environmentalist and historian. Walker has long studied the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition. She has traveled their entire route by road and small plane and then created a website for school children on the subject. How lucky for us Walker and Lowery combined their talents.

Chasing Lewis & Clark Across America is on of the most beautiful history lessons you can read. You will follow the Lewis and Clark trail through bits of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Washington, and return along much the same route. Lowery and Walker had a great chase crew that picked them up at night in an RV when possible.

Lowery and Walker tell of many small towns where historical re-enactors dress in the clothing and use tools of the early 1800s, allowing you to see what the explorers actually went through. The locations of the replicas of the original keelboats are pinpointed for you.

You will also be introduced to many Indian tribes that lived along the route. It is noted that lack of education–on both sides–was responsible for many conflicts.

Aerial Artistry
This is really a hard book to read through because you will want to spend so much time appreciating the pictures as you read.

In this extraordinary collection of photographs you will see an America that is absolutely glorious. I wondered how much time he had to spend waiting to get such perfect weather and lighting.

You do get a feeling that parts of the country can not have changed that much since the adventurous Lewis and Clark first saw it. And you do wish they could have seen their journey as Lowery photographed it.

Touring “The Trail”
You will want to stop at the new Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Sioux City, Iowa. On display are very realistic animatronics figures of the two explorers. The costumes and styles of speech are as accurate as possible. You will get a very true feeling of the way everything looked and sounded at the time the events actually occurred.

Lowery and Walker take you to a modern powow in Pickstown, South Dakota, where you are not allowed to take pictures during certain portions of the ceremony as they are still considered sacred rituals. Yankton, Cheyenne River, Rosebud and Santee Sioux tribes were some of the tries represented. Bits of fascinating information, including the politics of the country, and of what was actually going on with the men working on the expedition are written of. With the beautiful overhead photography of the areas Lewis and Clark were traveling through, you do get a large picture of what must have been entailed in the vast undertaking of this journey.

The people me on the trip are warm, friendly and interesting.

By the time you get to the end of the book, it is almost a culture shock to see a panoramic view of St. Louis, Missouri as is it today. But you will positively know what Irving Berlin meant when he wrote “From the mountains, to the prairies, to the ocean white with foam.” Chasing Lewis & Clark Across America: A 21st Century Aviation Adventure by Ron Lowery and Mary Walker may be purchased at barnesandnoble.com or contact the publisher, Windsock Media, 6303 Clark Road, Harrison, TN 37341; (423) 344-3701; www.windsockmedia.com. I strongly recommend you buy the hardcover version.
–Judy Steele ©2004 Woodalls