This is the River-Horse Pavilion, built in 2006 to celebrate Heat-Moon’s journey in Nikawa, the very boat we saw leave his home some years earlier. Then you see an open structure next to the parking lot. Today, as you drive north on Highway 63 just coming into Columbia from the direction of Jefferson City, the massive red metal roof of the Boone County History and Culture Center catches your eye. On that spring day, little did we know that the C-Dory being carefully pulled into traffic would later stand in a bold wooden pavilion just outside Columbia. I handed him a Timex Expedition watch that had been my trusty travel companion. As the author prepared to ease both his boat and his hopes into motion, Cathy presented him with an ivory amulet of a sea otter. This 22-foot C-Dory with twin engines was nestled in a solid towing trailer.

Trogdon called his newly acquired boat Nikawa, which means “river-horse” in the Osage language. In March 1995, my wife Cathy and I went to wish Godspeed to Columbia, Missouri, resident William Lewis Trogdon as he was leaving for New York City to begin a 103-day nautical journey, which he would chronicle in the 1999 book, River-Horse: A Voyage Across America, under the pen name of William Least Heat-Moon. Paperback, 401 pages.William Least Heat-Moon River-Horse Pavilion

William Least Heat-Moon is the author of the bestselling classics Blue Highways, River-Horse, and PrairyErth. A perfect treasury of prose and provocation for readers old and new, Heat-Moon's most recent work reveals his absolute mastery across pages many and few. Including Heat-Moon's reflections on writing these pieces, HERE, THERE, ELSEWHERE is much more than the usual collection of amber it is a coupled summation of craft and memory. Personally selected by the writer, these pieces take us from Japan, England, Italy, and Mexico to Long Island, Oregon, Arizona, from small towns to big cities, ocean shores and inland mysteries. HERE, THERE, ELSEWHERE draws together for the first time William Least Heat-Moon's greatest short-form travel writing. From the acclaimed author of Blue Highways, PrairyErth, and Roads to Quoz, a dazzling collection of travel tales from the road.

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