Author finds retracing explorers' steps has its ups and downs

Holloway returns to Ephrata after parachuting expedition

The only time Bob Holloway really got nervous was watching a bunch of black clouds forming a storm right in front of him.

At the time, Holloway was up in the air in his powered parachute on the way to Falls City, Neb., following the return journey of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

Weather reports said that quarter-inch hail was expected.

"We were frantically searching for a place to set down, because (the storm) was right over the airport," Holloway said. "I got to the point where I was six miles from the airport, and just had to find a place to set down. So we found this one little road with no power lines and set down there."

As previously reported, Holloway had three reasons to make the trek. First, he wanted to know if he could do it. Second, he wanted to make the public aware that there's no reason a person can't do anything when diagnosed with adult diabetes. Holloway was diagnosed over 10 years ago. And finally, he's hoping to generate interest in his book, "Desert of Dreams."

Holloway began his trip June 18 in Astoria, Ore., and concluded July 12 in Independence, Mo. He projected that he flew 2,375 miles.

Not bad for a trip that looked at times like it might never get off the ground.

Holloway and Quincy resident Leonard Greenwalt, who drove the chase vehicle that would refuel Holloway's parachute for the first leg of the journey, stopped off for a bite to eat at Silver Creek when the restaurant waitress noticed smoke coming out of the hood of their vehicle.

"We ran out there, I got the hood open and the flames were two to three feet high," Holloway said. "The waitress had a fire extinguisher there, so Leonard grabbed that and while I was getting the hood open he come out there and got it out. Of course, it burned up some wiring and a bunch of other stuff and we had to call a tow truck. But about two minutes later, we would have lost everything."

Holloway figured that that would further delay launching of the trip, but luck took on the form of a passing tow truck operator stopping in for his own lunch. The tow truck driver bundled up Holloway and Greenwalt's truck, and took them to the nearest garage. Holloway said it was only a matter of hours before they were back on the road.

"It had its ups and downs in more ways than one," he said of the entire trip. "Not only the takeoffs and landings, but the updrafts and the downdrafts, and the weather was good and it was bad. Just well rounded, I guess."

Holloway felt there were three major obstacles to overcome on the journey. The Columbia Gorge took two tries, he said, as did LoLo Pass in the Bitterroot Mountains and the Continental Divide, where Holloway hit power lines and landed with a crash, which led to a 10-day wait while repairs were done on the parachute. Holloway and Greenwalt returned home, and Holloway switched chase vehicles because of an illness in Greenwalt's family.

"I'm about half crazy," Greenwalt said with a chuckle of the reasons he agreed to go along on the trip. "He's a friend of mine and I thought that it might be interesting. We didn't have time to have fun."

Greenwalt said that he might consider going along with Holloway on another trip at some point.

Larry Chase, a resident of Okanagan, took over the duties when the trip resumed.

"Keep him in the air, keep him fueled, make sure that the machine is safe, lay the chute out ready for take off, check everything," Chase said of the duties of a chase vehicle driver. "I am a flier myself, and then it's his job to look at it again to make sure I was right. I am not a professional mechanic, but there was problems he had that had to be addressed. I did ground him a couple of times."

Chase said he had known of Holloway for several years, having read of his 2001 flight from Canada to Mexico, for which Holloway holds a Guinness World Record.

"The guy's got guts," Chase said. "My job was to keep him in the air, so when he stopped, I had to have fuel. I had to drive really hard … I didn't break any rules, but maybe I bent them a little. I had to get gas both for the pickup and him, but mainly him."

Chase called the experience a riot and the chance of a lifetime. He said he would go again in a heartbeat.

One of Holloway's favorite things was the different shades of green of the land throughout most of his flight, he said. He also liked the people that he met on his journey, including a group of people in Glendive, Mont., who helped him with maintenance and with whom he shared breakfast for a couple mornings while waiting for better weather to take flight again.

He said he was interested in Lewis and Clark because that is one of those things people hear about ever since their childhood.

"I just marveled at the accomplishment of them for doing it, because after flying over the top of the country and looking what they had to go through, how they found their way through it, how they could separate in absolute wilderness and then meet at some designated point and arrive within a day of each other at that designated point much later — it's phenomenal to me," Holloway said.

As for an encore, Holloway said that everyone is asking him what he's going to do. He dismissed the suggestion of a coast-to-coast flight, because he doesn't want to fly over and in well-populated areas.

"I'm not ready to answer (the question of what's next) yet," he said with a chuckle.

Accounts of the trip can be viewed on Holloway's Web site, www.agbob.com.