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HOW MANY MILES TO GALENA? by Richard Bissell

HOW MANY MILES TO GALENA?

By

Pub Date: Nov. 14th, 1968
Publisher: Little, Brown

Mr. Bissell is a congenital wanderer and much of the mileage here is attributable to his happy enthusiasm and lack of journeyman writing. With his wife and children he first headed for Kamloops, B.C., Canada. And it's one long detour as they go through Dubuque, Iowa; through the west noticing the thousands of hair curlers on heads facing Mount Rushmore; commenting on atmosphere--Sheridan (Wyoming) has ""all the swell western flavor of Bridgeport."" They take to the Alcan Highway and miles of really roughing it through Skag-way, Alaska where the main street is ""so picturesque that if you are sensitive you may have to lean against a telephone pole every once in a while to recover."" And Kamloops is the starting point for Maine, Mount Snow, Vermont, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Chicago, Las Vegas (where ""Edward Albee is 2,754 miles away"") and finally Galena, the county seat of Jo Daviess County, Illinois, to sleep where Lincoln once slept. It's a joyous jaunt and it just goes to prove that travel can be more than half the fun of getting there.