chris mccandless

i'm still on a roll with reading. it's a high i just don't want to get off of. ever. but i know eventually i will come to a a time when it will stop again. hopefuly it'll be far, far in the future.

i finished reading "into the wild" before going into work. i breezed through the book. once i got my teeth in it, which was probably the first few pages, i couldn't stop. i really couldn't put it down, or keep pressing the play button.

the story of Chris McCandless is too wild to be true. he traversed all over the west and north and alaska.

it wasn't just hitching rides, though. he did that thing where he rode a canoe down the colorado and made it to the gulf of california. crazy shit, man.

i tried to put myself in his shoes and couldn't picture it. i mean, maybe it's the eye sight thing. i guess i could hitch rides or whatever, but i doubt i'd be able to ride down rivers in a canoe without getting my ass lost. and i most certainly would be unable to maintain my sanity without people for the months he did.

ultimately i thought he was a bit of a dick, though.he'd come and go in and out of people's lives, never really sticking around and bonding with them. maybe it was his way. i like people too much to just do that.

i was also imporessed with the journalistic integrity jon krakauer maintained. he researched the facts and created a heck of a book. i still wonder how he managed to track down all of those people to piece together the two years of mccandless' life. i know he had the diary and there were common links. but there is the example of the man who gave him a ride along the alaskan highway. ow'd he managet o contact this man? perhaps the man came forward. either way, krakauer did a great job, much as he did with "into thin air."

i liked hwo he weaved in his own tale of his upbringing andhis adventures to alaska years before to climb up that mountain. what kept him going? why did krakauer live when he could have very well have easily slipped in a cravace or frozen to death? life's weird that way. he lived and he told another tale. a tale where the protagonist wasn't quite as lucky.