The Hog, the Dog, & the Iron Horse: Travel Through America

Travels through America using the iconic Greyhound buses, the Amtrak trains, and an Indian Motorcycle. Alex Kendall wanted to see the ＂real＂ America and experience life on the road once again.

Along the way, he travelled 20,000 miles; destroyed his spinal column; got mistaken for a model; had breakfast with a stuntman; survived for three days on two packets of nuts; hung out with gold miners, ex-cons and famous comedians; nearly drowned on a motorcycle; and became a drug smuggler.

This book is a combined guidebook, travel journal, and a warning to dreamers.

Alex Kendall is a Cornishman at the tail end of his stupid life. He has worked (against his wishes) in engineering for most of his days, due to geography and a lazy gene that he has yet to bother looking for.His father had travelled the world three times before Alex was even born, and so his family home was full of artifacts like African masks, tribal drums made out of animal skins with horns shoved in them, French duelling swords, stuffed baby alligators, etc. It was like a British museum; everywhere you looked, there were things that didn’t belong. On one wall was a large print of Guernica by Pablo Picasso. It was that sort of house.His teenage years were spent hitchhiking (due to finances and being ugly enough to not bother the most desperate of child molesters). This led him to many thumb-based adventures, including one to Paris at the end of the ’80s to avoid the music of Simply Red. Sadly, he found the bobble-headed lothario even more popular on the Continent and returned.There have been breaks in his so-called ’engineering career, ’ such as when he put himself through university to become a teacher, ending up in The Bahamas. Having watched the locals casually shoot at the police on day one, nearly chop his own fingers off on an ceiling fan on day two, and then be informed by his employers that the island was considered the fourth murder capital in the world on day three, he returned to Cornwall (UK), at the end of the last century, to become the best ’still alive’ Dad in the world.Running parallel to his exotic life, he has been writing constantly. As a child, he drew his own comics, kept a very tedious diary, and wrote and recorded his own terrible songs. As an adult, he learnt his lessons and moved on to run his own fanzine and do some freelance work in the national music press, which found him rubbing shoulders with artists of a much higher calibre than Mick Hucknell (thankfully). This then led him to writing books, when an unexpected biography piece uncovered too many fascinating details for the planned article.His first travel book, The Hog, The Dog, & The Iron Horse, came about after a life long love of the beat writers’ work and a desire to see beyond the façade the media bombards us with. He traveled through America using the iconic Greyhound bus, the Amtrak train, and an Indian motorcycle. He wanted to see the ’real’ America and experience life on the road once again.Along the way he travelled 20,000 miles, destroyed his spinal column, got mistaken for a model, had breakfast with a stuntman, survived for three days on two packets of nuts, hung out with gold miners, ex-cons, and famous comedians, nearly drowned on a motorcycle, and became a drug smuggler. The book is a combined guide book, travel journal, and a warning to dreamers. It is also very funny and very rude.He owns far too many books already, but it didn’t stop him getting hold of a copy of Zoe Cano’s first brilliant adventure, Bonneville Go Or Bust, and it probably won’t stop him buying more.