Shakedown Cruise: The Great Adventure Begins
Tuesday, April 23 2024
April is the cruelest month, says T.S. Eliot, perhaps because it brings you some false spring that often enough is put in its place by late blasts of winter. This is certainly true on the Great Plains. But I am leaving on my big John Steinbeck Travels with Charley Tour on April 27 …
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The Solar Eclipse of 2024: A View From Chaco Canyon
Monday, April 15 2024
My friend Dennis and I had the good fortune to experience the solar eclipse of 2024 at Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico. We could not have chosen a better place to observe the eclipse. Chaco Canyon is more than just another example of what used to be called Anasazi sites. It was designed from the beginning to serve as a lunar and solar “clock.”
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Witnessing the Astounding Diversity of America in 24 Hours
Monday, April 08 2024
A whirlwind journey takes Clay from Bismarck, N.D., to Brooklyn, N.Y., to Farmington, N.M. and a view of America’s extraordinary multiplicity.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
John Brown: A Remarkable American Story
Monday, April 01 2024
Hero, terrorist, martyr or madman? Clay examines the dramatic life of John Brown.
- Published in Features
Rereading Blue Highways — An Enduring Backroads Journal
Monday, March 25 2024
Originally published is 1982, Clay says William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways is still our best backroads manifesto.
- Published in Books
Wild Horses in the Badlands: Wildlife or Livestock?
Monday, March 18 2024
There’s horse trouble in Theodore Roosevelt National Park which is home to a feral herd of about 200 equines.
- Published in Features
A Beached Whale: Then and Now
Sunday, March 10 2024
Recently a humpback whale washed ashore at Virginia Beach. Even in death, it’s a magnificent creature. The beached whale reminded me of an incident during the winter of 1805-1806 at Fort Clatsop on the Pacific Ocean.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Reading Orwell’s 1984 In 2024
Thursday, March 07 2024
The question is: how prophetic was Orwell? What does he say to us in the age of “fake news” and “alternative facts”?
- Published in Books
Notes on Geert Mak’s In America: Travels with John Steinbeck
Saturday, March 02 2024
Mak’s In America: Travels with John Steinbeck is without question the best book written about retracing the 1960 Travels with Charley journey.
- Published in Books
Printed Maps and an Atlas: Old School, Indeed!
Friday, February 23 2024
We’re hard at work detailing plans to follow in the footsteps of John Steinbeck’s journey chronicled in Travels With Charley.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road