Synopsis
This is an account of the author's two-year trip in "a 25-foot boat along 1600 miles of Gulf Coast from the Florida keys to the mouth of the Rio Grande." (Libr J)

 Annotation
In a fascinating oral history of a colorful part of the American landscape, the bestselling author of A Walk Across America chronicles a two-year journey along the Gulf Coast, from the Florida Keys to the Texas coastal cattle country.

From the Critics
From Library Journal  
At 22, Jenkins set out on a six-year walk across the country. It was a journey full of new people, places, and ideas, and it became a journey of self-discovery. His account of it (A Walk Across America, 1979) launched a successful writing career. Now nearing 40 and plagued by mid-life ennui, Jenkins once again set out, this time piloting a 25-foot boat along 1600 miles of Gulf Coast from the Florida keys to the mouth of the Rio Grande. During the two-year trip he found a startling array of intriguing characters and parts of America that few of us will ever see. The reader is also pleased that, once again, the author found himself. A travel book and more, this is recommended for all public libraries.-Jim Burns, Ottumwa, Ia.
 
From Ted Conover - The New York Times Book Review  
Searching hard for the inner journey angle, Mr. Jenkins pegs this trip as the answer to a midlife crisis and opens his book with the service of divorce papers from his wife, Barbara--the 'Blue Highways' beginning. But you soon figure out that he had divorced and remarried, and even had another child, before the trip ever started. This self-dramatizing is the Waterloo of an otherwise appealing traveler: Mr. Jenkins has a winning style and an unmatched willingness to engage with strangers, even scary ones like Billy and Red, two swamp-dwelling brothers in the Florida Panhandle. . . . Mr. Jenkins's sea of American niceness is relieved by the appearance of some lowdown hijackers off the Texas coast. What he does to them will surprise you.