Chasing Arizona
One Man’s Yearlong Obsession with the Grand Canyon State
Paperback ($24.95), Ebook ($24.95)
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It seemed like a simple plan—visit fifty-two places in fifty-two weeks. But for author Ken Lamberton, a forty-five-year veteran of life in the Sonoran Desert, the entertaining results were anything but easy. In Chasing Arizona, Lamberton takes readers on a yearlong, twenty-thousand-mile joyride across Arizona during its centennial, racking up more than two hundred points of interest along the way.
Lamberton chases the four corners of Arizona, attempts every county, every reservation, and every national monument and state park, from the smallest community to the largest city. He drives his Kia Rio through the longest tunnels and across the highest suspension bridges, hikes the hottest deserts, and climbs the tallest mountain, all while visiting the people, places, and treasures that make Arizona great.
In the vivid, lyrical, often humorous prose the author is known for, each destination weaves together stories of history, nature, and people, along with entertaining side adventures and excursions. Maps and forty-four of the author’s detailed pencil drawings illustrate the journey.
Chasing Arizona is unlike any book of its kind. It is an adventure story, a tale of Arizona, a road-warrior narrative. It is a quest to see and experience as much of Arizona as possible. Through intimate portrayals of people and place, readers deeply experience the Grand Canyon State and at the same time celebrate what makes Arizona a wonderful place to visit and live.
Lamberton chases the four corners of Arizona, attempts every county, every reservation, and every national monument and state park, from the smallest community to the largest city. He drives his Kia Rio through the longest tunnels and across the highest suspension bridges, hikes the hottest deserts, and climbs the tallest mountain, all while visiting the people, places, and treasures that make Arizona great.
In the vivid, lyrical, often humorous prose the author is known for, each destination weaves together stories of history, nature, and people, along with entertaining side adventures and excursions. Maps and forty-four of the author’s detailed pencil drawings illustrate the journey.
Chasing Arizona is unlike any book of its kind. It is an adventure story, a tale of Arizona, a road-warrior narrative. It is a quest to see and experience as much of Arizona as possible. Through intimate portrayals of people and place, readers deeply experience the Grand Canyon State and at the same time celebrate what makes Arizona a wonderful place to visit and live.
“Ken is not only a master storyteller who spews out lovely sentences at nearly every turn but is an enthusiastic fan of Arizona history. This is quite simply a keeper—enjoyable without being silly, and well-researched without being stuffy.”—Gary P. Nabhan, author of Cumin, Camels, and Caravans: A Spice Odyssey
"I love reading a good writer. And it’s even better when the author writes about a subject I love. Ken Lamberton’s Chasing Arizona is a collection of memorable essays about the state we love. As entertaining as he is curiously profound, Lamberton is Arizona’s 21st Century Thoreau, blessed with the depth, eye, and patience of Joseph Wood Krutch, and the delicious literary flair of the late Charles Bowden."—David Fitzsimmons
"Ken Lamberton’s Chasing Arizona is a book full of fascinating information, surprising insights, good humor and wonderful writing. I thoroughly enjoyed it."—Thomas Cobb, author of With Blood in Their Eyes.