DISPATCHES FROM THE ROAD

Crow Canyon Tour Announcement

Field Report: History and Current Challenges to Western Public Lands

Alongside archaeologist Dr. Susan Ryan, Clay co-hosted a recent cultural tour of the Four Corners region to help guests get an “on-the-ground” look at the past and future of the National Monuments and Antiquities Act.
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American and European Bison.

Reporting From Switzerland: a Euro-Bison Comeback. Who Knew?

Iconic to the American West, I was surprised to learn of a British preservation program for European bison.
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canoes on the Upper Missouri River

White Cliffs of the Missouri River: Same Time Next Year!

I’ve just wrapped up the 26th summer leading my Lewis and Clark cultural tour. Days canoeing remote sections of the Missouri River and hiking the Bitterroot Mountains in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark never fail to inspire in me the majesty and promise of America.
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The Villa Rotonda, designed by Andrea Palladio, an Italian architect who more than anyone else inspired Jefferson and American neoclassicism architecture

Views of the American Dream From Milan, Italy 

Surprisingly, I did not spend the Fourth of July in America this year. But being thousands of miles away made the promise of our exceptional nation clear.
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Inside Wind Cave National Park in southwestern South Dakota.

Wind Cave National Park

Our roving humanities scholar Clay S. Jenkinson is typically dedicated to the truth and nothing but the truth, but his visit to Wind Cave National Park seems to have addled his brain. No other visitor on his recent tour reported meeting Dante and Virgil at the Seventh Circle of the cave.
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Clay's map from day one on his 2026 exploration of Teddy Roosevelt's West, between In Burning Coal Vein National Forest, N.D., between Bullion Butte and Devils Tower.

On the Road! Westward With Teddy Roosevelt

Memorial Day weekend 2026, Clay and the LTA Airstream hit the trail, following Teddy Roosevelt’s legacy in the American West.  
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Archaeological Site of Ancient Troy

Homer and Hubris in a Turkish Rental Car

After a rental car odyssey, trekking 215-miles southwest of Istanbul, Clay spends a magical afternoon at the site of Homer’s epic, the Iliad.
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Map of the World of the Iliad, c. 1200 BCE.

Dispatch from the Coast of Turkey

Clay and his daughter make a long-planned pilgrimage to Troy, the site of the ancient epic the Iliad.
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NASA’s Orion spacecraft under parachutes as it lands in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, Friday, April 10, 2026.

The Torch Has Been Passed —  A New Era of Space Exploration 

It felt like old times on Friday night as we all watched the splashdown of the Artemis II Moon mission.
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Liftoff of the SLS rocket carrying NASA's Artemis II mission to the moon. April 1, 2026.

Artemis II Reflections: To the Moon and Beyond

It felt like 1965. I sat looking at a small screen TV last week as Artemis II was launched on America’s first moon mission in over 50 years.
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