My first horseback journey began at the Pacific coast on the beach at Santa Barbara in April 1968. I wanted to find the America I grew up reading about. I was fearful that it would be gone. While living mostly off the land, I rode through all the seasons and across four thousand miles. It took seven months to reach the Atlantic. I did not realize at the time, but what I had done was a first – one man on one horse across the continent in one continuous trek. Wind Drinker is a spiritual name, given to me by a Zuni Brujo, as I crossed Navajo land.
In 1984, I saddled my horse Najah, and took another ride from Canada down the Rocky Mountain chain to México. My reason for doing so is in the book. It was another first, having crossed America on horseback west to east and north to south.
I was invited to bring my trails concept to Namibia, SouthWest Africa, in 1986. There, I rode on horseback across the empty badlands with an American companion, Bayard Fox and seventeen soldiers of the S.W.F. Special Forces.
My reason for writing this book started with the hundreds of letters stuffed in file cabinets inside my garage. That is where most of the correspondence ended up over the years. Obviously, there was a lot of interest in what I have done.
As this is a book of memoir and instruction, I have included passages from logbooks and audiocassette tapes that I carried on various treks.
Wind Drinker is the story of an innocent blundering that led to an epic journey. It was a life-changing event and this is an account of why and how it happened.
