Blue Highways: A Journey into America

Heat-Moon is in North Carolina when he realizes, almost as an afterthought, that he is loosely tracing the route of his white ancestor, William Trogdon, a casualty of the American Revolutionary War. Heat-Moon decides to track down the final resting place of his long-deceased ancestor.

Near Franklinville in North Carolina—after a long struggle and something of a wild goose chase, and with the help of a local man named Noel Jones and what the author deems omens and mysterious driving forces—Heat-Moon arrives near Trogdon’s gravesite. Jones, though not educated in the classical sense, appears as something of a philosopher to Heat-Moon.

To reach the gravesite, Heat-Moon treks through dense, wild forest and fears he will be lost. He ultimately discovers that because of the impounding of Sandy Creek, Trogdon’s grave is underwater. Heat-Moon spends time at the site, deep in the backwoods, pondering and trying to imagine the details of Trogdon’s final moments. The chapter concludes with Heat-Moon dipping into the stream to wash up before proclaiming, “I, too, drank from the grave” (49).

Heat-Moon exits the woods without incident but is very tired and hungry from his excursion. Upon returning to Ghost Dancing, Heat-Moon is startled by movement outside the van: It’s a police officer who warns the author not to sleep where he is.