DISPATCHES FROM THE ROAD

Medgar Evers' house
Clay visits Medgar Evers’ home, now a national monument. Medgar Evers was killed by a white supremacist here, in front of his house, on June 12, 1963.
Route 66 road sign

Route 66 and The Grapes of Wrath

I’ve been at both ends of U.S. Route 66 this year, the highway we associate with John Steinbeck and the Joad family of The Grapes of Wrath.
Steinbeck statue
As Clay traveled across the country, he stopped at John Steinbeck’s beloved Monterey Bay, home of the author’s great friend Ed Ricketts and the inspiration for many unforgettable characters immortalized in his novels.
Glendive dinosaur museum
The Dinosaur and Fossil Museum in eastern Montana presents its detailed fossil displays in the context of “Biblical history.”
Red Lake sign
Clay shares some of the unique history of the Red Lake Indian Reservation, which covers 1,260 square miles in Northern Minnesota.
It was getting close to Halloween as I pulled in. The sign at the gate said, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”
Clay video still
Our intrepid traveler courageously wades the waters at the source of the Mississippi, America’s second-longest river. It flows 2,350 miles from its source at Lake Itasca in Minnesota through the heart of the continental United States to the Gulf of Mexico.
Frank and Clay video still
Listening to America’s “Chief Scout,” Frank Lister and Clay visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, where George Custer’s 7th Cavalry met its fate against Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors in June 1876.
Giant Meteor Crater, about a half mile in diameter sits in the northern Arizona desert.
Missouri River
Clay stops on the banks of the mighty Missouri River, the boundary of America’s east and west. It is here that John Steinbeck noted, “The two sides of the river might well be one thousand miles apart.”