The Vagabond Library

Reach up, reach in, reach beyond, reach out.

Articles Guaranteed to Stretch Your Mind

Sit by the fireplace, have a drink and a good read

with curious people like you.

 
Monument Valley, Movie Magic and a Special Navajo Friendship
Vagabond Dispatches (N. America) Chip Walter Vagabond Dispatches (N. America) Chip Walter

Monument Valley, Movie Magic and a Special Navajo Friendship

Dispatch XXIII

The next morning ghostly clouds enshrouded the monuments outside our window. I felt we were in a mythic land, an unreal place. The wind soon sheared the mist away revealing buttes hundreds of feet high and pillars that seemed to connect earth and sky. Everywhere the land was red as if drenched by a million sun rises.

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A Prisoner of Sand
Insights Chip Walter Insights Chip Walter

A Prisoner of Sand

They crashed in the Sahara desert without food, water, a radio or anything but their wit and stamina to save them. The last night they began to freeze in the night wind, unable to move enough blood through their coagulating blood streams to summon up warmth. In the cold their throats closed, their saliva retreated, their tongues turned to cloth and they waited for death. But it did not come … This is rates as one of the great adventures ever.

(Photos by Chip Walter)

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The Legend of Crazy Horse
Vagabond Dispatches (N. America) Chip Walter Vagabond Dispatches (N. America) Chip Walter

The Legend of Crazy Horse

Dispatch XV

In the summer of 1857 a light skinned, 17-year-old Oglala Sioux brave whose mother nicknamed Curly, decided to go on a vision quest so that he could understand the future path his life should take. His father, sometimes known as Worm, was a respected shaman in the tribe. He made arrangements and accompanied his son on his quest so that he did it the proper Sioux way. They rode away, fasted and set up a sweat lodge where they spent time and discussed his future…

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