than another person and this 'blacker than thou' attitude, and i found that, you know, again, baseless and i really wanted to apply geography to the question in a way that i hadn't seen done a great deal. c-span: how many towns did you stop in that you write about in your book? >> guest: i think ultimately there are about 23 included, but i went to probably a score more. c-span: at some point, you say you had 5,000 pages of material. >> guest: yeah, notes, transcripts, bits of history that i had collected over--i mean, it was about--we're talking six years' worth of research and travel. c-span: how many miles did you drive? >> guest: well, at one point, i had collected, on my truck, 75,000 miles, and this was having driven to alaska and back, and then gone across the country twice. c-span: what kind of a vehicle did you drive around in? >> guest: it was a chevy blazer, 1991 chevy blazer. c-span: by yourself? >> guest: yes, largely by myself. c-span: how long would you stay in any one place? >> guest: i think the max was a little over two weeks. i tried not to upset the rhythm at one po