Landings in America & Lone Rider

Travel the world with two of the finest motorsports travel writers on the planet! Take a trip back to the 1960s and trot the globe with Elsepth Beard, and then visit the 1980s and fly around America with Peter Egan! Two great writers--one low price! 

LANDINGS IN AMERICA

In the summer of 1987 automotive journalist Peter Egan gave in to his lifelong fascination with classic airplanes and pursued the third branch of his addiction to romantic modes of travel—namely, flying. Carrying only the barest essentials—a pup tent, a wad of cash, and a change of clothing—Peter and his wife Barb took off on a six-week, seven-thousand-mile trip around the US in their yellow 1945 J-3 Piper Cub. The places they stumbled upon and the people they encountered would change their lives forever. Between musings on being outpaced by the toy-sized eighteen-wheelers beneath their wings and flashbacks to nearly setting a Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s house on fire, Egan captures the essence of a modern pilgrimage.

Landings in America is Peter Egan’s homage to the enduring spirit of exploration that has defined his work. Punctuated with the witty repartee that his longtime readers have grown to revere, the story is equal parts travel adventure, memoir of post-Vietnam era America, and trek into personal reflections triggered by the places and names one couple encountered along their flight path.

Always in the background of their trip is the unspoken search for a new place to live, far away from the urban sprawl and crowded freeways of California, a possible rehearsal for someday flying home. 

LONE RIDER

In 1982, at the age of twenty-three, Elspeth Beard left her family and friends in London and set off on a 35,000-mile solo adventure around the world on her 1974 BMW R60/6.

With some savings from her pub job, a tent, a few clothes, and some tools, all packed on the bike, she was determined to prove herself and to get over a recent heartbreak. She had ridden bikes since her teens and was already well traveled, but this journey would be the toughest thing she’d ever done. By the time she returned to England two years later, she was 30 pounds lighter and decades wiser. She’d ridden through deserts and mountain ranges and war-ravaged countries. She’d faked documents and fended off sexual attacks, biker gangs, and corrupt police who were convinced she was trafficking drugs. She’d survived brutal crashes and life-threatening illnesses and she’d fallen in love with two very different men. In an age before email, the Internet, mobile phones, and GPS, Elspeth had to navigate with unreliable maps, communicate by post, and fix her bike with the tools she carried with her, but she achieved her goal nonetheless. Told with honesty and wit, this is the extraordinary and moving story of a unique and life-changing adventure.