Customer Reviews

Out West: American Journey Along the Lewis and Clark Trail

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When a review copy of Dayton Duncan's "Out West" arrived in the Ohio newsroom where I worked in the mid-1980s, I snagged it and devoured it within days. I knew right then I'd have to make the trip myself someday. When I got the chance to write a guidebook to the trail in the early 1990s ("Traveling the Lewis & Clark Trail," also available via amazon.com), "Out West" rode shotgun with the Lewis & Clark journals on my pickup seat. "Out West" is among the best American road books ever written, full of insight about the Lewis & Clark Expedition and how America has changed in the 200 years since then. From Duncan's "road rules" to his insider tips on the best cafes and most colorful characters along the way, you can't go wrong going "Out West" with Dayton Duncan.

I recently read "Out West" after reading Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage" and exploring the Yellowsone and Missouri Rivers in Montana. Dayton Duncon does an awesome job at desribing the landscape, people, and histoty of this amazing land, as well as dealing with problems the land and people face. His humous insights and courage to get up and go inspires me to want to head out west in the footsteps of Captains Lewis, Clark, and Duncan!

Duncan's Out West is an immensely enjoyable read! His humor, insight and detail make the book one of my all-time favorites. I grew up only ~3 miles from where the cover photo was taken, I have since relocated. This book takes me home.

After reading Undaunted Courage I was interested enough in Lewis in Clark to read Out West. The section where Duncan describes Ambrose's affection for Lewis is great. I was very pleasantly surprised in Duncan's modern insights and great sense of humor. Unlike many other Americans, Duncan seems genuinely concerned about the people he encounters on his journey. Like others that read the book Duncan's writing makes me want to drop everything and head out for an adventure. Duncan seems concerned with the possibility of nuclear destruction. Reading the book in 1998 provides an interesting perspective to Duncan's early 80's Cold War stress. Altogether an incredibly enjoyable, humorous and insightful book. The story of Lewis and Clark is a background for an excellent book about America and Americans.

Ride with Dayton Duncan as he skillfully guides you through Lewis and Clark's journey. "Out West" combines the historical perspective of "The Journey" with Duncan's subtle humor. Duncan places many historical changes into focus with his insights of "bittersweet americana". You will find yourself with Duncan and his new aquaintences in the V.W. micro-bus as it tools along our nation's forgotten rural highways. After reading "Out West", you will ponder the idea of gassin'-up and headin' out with a new perspective on the many "movements west" experienced by the United States. Volumes have been written about Lewis and Clark. Duncan brings you the insights and emotion from a standpoint that few people are aware of or care to make mention. Dayton Duncan does not just write about his journey along the Lewis and Clark trail he makes certain that you are along every word of the way.

After listening to and seeing Dayton Duncan's narration in the PBS TV program "Lewis & Clark : Journey of the Corps of Discovery", I felt compelled to pick up a copy of "Out West" and read it. And once I started reading the book (with a Rand McNally's Road Atlas to put Mr. Duncan's narration in perspective) I found that I just couldn't put down the book!

The author's passion for the protagonists of what many might regard as the greatest land journey ever undertaken, as well as for the land they traversed and the people who lived on those lands then and those who live there today, is evident throughout this masterpiece. The writing is simple, lucid and personal -- I almost felt as if the author was a friend talking to me across the dining table. And he does give the impresion that Lewis and Clark are his friends too, even though separated as they are, by nearly two centuries in time.

Reading this book was a memorable experience. I would gladly recommend "Out West" to all my friends and even present some of them with copies of the book. Thanks for sharing your marvelous experience with us, Mr. Duncan!

If you've ever taken a long car or RV trip, you know exactly what Dayton Duncan was experiencing when he wrote "Out West" back in the 1980s. If you've never traveled that way...go! Mr. Duncan brought me back to my travels as a youngster with my family and reminded me of how much I enjoy going west with my husband and young daughter from our home in New Hampshire. He takes the road less traveled where it's not the destination but the getting there that counts! That's how we go, too. Mr. Duncan just gave me a few more travel tips that I'd forgotten about or never thought of. It's not just a story of his adventures following the Lewis and Clark Expedition trail...it's a travelogue about HOW to travel. It still holds true today...it's just more expensive now (gas, food, etc.). A worthwhile, easy, educational read.

In the early 1980's Dayton Duncan hitched up his nerve to an old VW camper he named the "Discovery" (after Lewis & Clark's "Corps of Discovery") and followed the modern route west along the trail Lewis and Clark had blazed almost two centuries before.

Duncan crosses the Missouri, winters (for a weekend) at the site of the Mandan Village where the Corps spent their first winter, crosses the plains of Montana, squeezes his way through the Bitteroot Mountains and courses parallel to the Columbia River waterway in his retracing. Along the way, he encounters modern westerners and provides a taste of small-town America in what is today one of the least settled and developed parts of the North America (save for the numerous hydro-electric dams which have turned much of Lewis & Clarks river pathways to lakes).

Each chapter features a snippet of what the explorers were enduring during their journey and then cuts to Duncan's experiences with the jaunts, journeys and people who in habit the trail area today.

This is not a bad book, and is entertaining at times. It is uneven. When Duncan meets an interesting modern westerner (Indian or White), the recounts are interesting. The author lacks, however the ability to enliven the dull who make up most of us the way Bill Bryson seems to be able to do or the editorial judgement to leave mundane stories on the cutting room floor. The historic parts and place descriptions are rather good and the casual history fan will come away with a better understanding of the great American journey known eponymously as Lewis and Clark.

Mr. Duncan sets out on a journey that registers on the odometer but fails to touch the raw nerve of the West. Tours of museums aren't exciting road stories, more like your bald uncle's excruciating vacation stories to Buena Vista. The Reagan-era "John Wayne" America is in full display here, with Native American issues handled with bizarre insensitivity considering how close he gets to them. God bless factories and tenderloin, we are supposed to cajole! Forget this book and its banal understanding of American history (I'd rather return to an 8th grade history class for better insights) and western life. Read Rick Bass or Abbey, Stegner or McCarthy, for the real stuff.