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    Adventure Road
    Adventure Road
    Adventure Road
    Ebook90 pages50 minutes

    Adventure Road

    By William Thacker

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Come along as four young explorers set out on an overland expedition to Mexico and Guatemala on a voyage of exploration and discovery.

    This true story recounts the experiences of recent high school graduates who travel from their Florida hometown to the unfamiliar mountains and tropical jungles of Central America.

     

    Piled into a specially-equipped Land Rover, pulling a trailer laden with the supplies and provisions needed for an eight-week road trip, they travel west to Texas, then deep into Mexico, discovering along the way that no matter how much they planned, danger can strike an unexpected blow.

     

    Making new friends as they went, they crossed paths with unusual creatures, collected wild specimens, and experienced the kindness of strangers.

    A recently re-discovered 8mm movie from the trip provides the background for William Thacker's vivid description of the incredible journey. Along the way, they encounter local inhabitants and exotic wildlife, scenic vistas, and unforeseen perils. The four relied on the strength and ingenuity of each other to survive, and naturally, it forged a unique bond among them that lasts to this day.

     

    Don't miss any of William Thacker's adventures in The Chronicles of An Exotic Animal Cowboy: OTTERS ON A PLANE • INTO THE ORINOCO BASIN • THE IMPORTER • THE FLIGHT OF N9701J • RETURN TO THE ORINOCO • AN UNTAMED LAND

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilliam Thacker
    Release dateAug 5, 2023
    ISBN9798223948261
    Adventure Road
    Author

    William Thacker

    Ever since four-year-old William Thacker got to hold a black rat snake, he has been fascinated by animals. As a child, he kept a menagerie in his family’s back yard in Florida, then moved his collection to Clermont’s Citrus Tower where, at the age of fifteen, he was giving guided tours and “milking” rattlesnakes for the public at The Wildlife Arena. Throughout his life, William has involved himself in traveling, collecting, and teaching about wildlife. He has been a youth camp nature director, a teacher, and a television host. He has operated an import company, an exotic animal shop, and has worked as a zoo educator. In 2019 William returned to Florida and began writing Thacker Tales. He now resides in the Black Hammock Wilderness Area where he continues to pen the stories of his incredible life with animals.

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      Book preview

      Adventure Road - William Thacker

      Adventure Road

      The Overland Expedition to Mexico and Guatemala

      ––––––––

      William Thacker

      Snake outline

      ––––––––

      from

      The Life Journals of William Thacker

      The author owes a huge debt of gratitude to Joanne Lawlor, Valerie Proctor, and Steve Duncan for their help and inspiration in the preparation and publication of this book.

      This book is a work of creative nonfiction. Some of the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

      Editor’s note: Many of the photos in this book were extracted from the Super 8 mm movie that was shot during the trip. Their quality isn’t the best, but they are intended to depict actual events.

      ––––––––

      Copyright © 2023 by William Thacker

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording without prior written permission from the author.

      Table of Contents

      ~~~

      Getting Ready

      Four Friends

      Snakes in the Mail

      Network

      Scales

      The Southern Boundary

      The Wanderers

      Thunder on the Mountain

      The Aftermath

      Highways and Trails

      The Pacific Lowlands

      City of the Aztecs

      The Dead Run for Home

      Author’s Note

      About the Author

      I met Lenny Baird in the first grade at Clermont Elementary School. We remained close friends through college and on into life until he left this earthly plane on May 16, 2021.

      This one’s for you, Bairdy.

      A person in a suit and tie Description automatically generated

      Getting Ready

      Snake outline

      May 10th, 1966

      Clermont, Florida

      A map of the united states of america Description automatically generated

      A large map of Mexico lay unfolded on my bedroom floor. The four of us gathered around it like kids at a board game, measuring distances between towns and finalizing our itinerary.

      Barely a month remained to complete the elaborate planning and preparation for this overland expedition to Central America.

      Around us were volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia, the primary source of information on our many destinations. Also at hand was the Hammond World Atlas which provided the topography and vegetation of the areas we would pass through on this voyage of exploration and discovery.

      Our mission was a scientific one. We would be traveling under the auspices of the Florida State Museum, now known as the Florida Museum of Natural History, at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

      Our purpose was to find and collect local examples of flora and fauna and to bring them back to the museum for research and study.

      As an aspiring biologist, I planned to gather live specimens of whatever I could lay my hands on.

      I had just turned twenty. My lifelong friend, Lenny Baird, was nineteen. He and I had gone camping together in the Everglades in 1963 and were now ready for a longer, more arduous, and challenging journey. Sam Lane was nineteen and his cousin, Bob Pool, was only seventeen.

      At the time, I was attending Orlando Junior College so that I would be able to continue playing in our local garage band, The Trademarks. Lenny was enrolled at the University of Florida. I would join him there in 1967.

      On a very rainy morning in September 1965, I was driving the Trademarks’ van to school when I hit a large puddle on State Route 50 in Pine Hills and hydroplaned off the road. I lost control of the VW bus and collided with a telephone pole holding up a billboard. I awoke in the hospital and was told that rescuers had used the case of my Fender Jazzmaster bass guitar as a stretcher to carry me to the ambulance.

      Afterward, my parents decided that it would be safer if I drove a sturdier vehicle and found an apartment in Orlando, rather than make the daily commute. I agreed and suggested a Land Rover, having fallen in love with the British four-wheel drive vehicles after seeing the movie Hatari.

      Bob Donahue was a classmate at OJC. He was friendly, bright, and enterprising. Bob sat about making modifications to my new British Leyland vehicle in keeping with the rigorous demands we expected to make of it on our journey south.

      He bolted a hand winch on the front

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