DISPATCHES FROM THE ROAD

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.
Memorial Day weekend 2026, Clay and the LTA Airstream hit the trail, following Teddy Roosevelt’s legacy in the American West.  
Archaeological Site of Ancient Troy
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.
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.
It felt like old times on Friday night as we all watched the splashdown of the Artemis II Moon mission.
Liftoff of the SLS rocket carrying NASA's Artemis II mission to the moon. April 1, 2026.
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.
A statute of Lewis and Clark and the expedition's
Oh my, it would be infinitely easier for me to give a three-hour lecture than one of just half an hour.
Robert Frost in 1961, at the age of 86, reciting his poem
Can Artificial Intelligence reliably rank the 10 greatest poems of all time?
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Abbey Road Album Cover
I don’t know exactly what I expected from my personal downsizing campaign, but something really interesting is happening to me.
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A birds eye view of Walden Pond, near Concord, MA. (Photo Nolan Johnson)

Reading Thoreau Again

One of my friends contacted me not long ago and said, “Hey, you’re going to be in the Ken Burns documentary on Henry David Thoreau in March. I just saw you in the trailer. Are you going to do anything to be ready for when it comes out?” Truth told, I knew there was a Thoreau documentary coming sometime in 2026, but I wasn’t sure when.
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Protesters in a city

When is Enough Enough?

Do Jefferson's 27 indictments of King George III and the Parliament of Great Britain in his Declaration of Independence have application today?