DISPATCHES FROM THE ROAD

Crow Canyon Campus view
This is the fifth in a series of dispatches from Clay Jenkinson chronicling his recent journey with two compatriots following the Colorado River and neighboring region. The day was spent at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
A diversion dam on the Fremont River near Hanksville, Utah. Henry Mountains
Today we get officially underway. Frank’s wife Georgie dropped him off around 9 a.m. As we began the great adventure, she handed us a Ziplock bag full of homemade chocolate chip cookies.
View of the Escalante River, from the Kiva Koffeehouse near Boulder, Utah
This is the third in a series of dispatches from Clay Jenkinson chronicling his recent journey with two compatriots following the Colorado River and neighboring region. The day was spent in and around Boulder, Utah (population, 248; elevation 6700’).
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Dennis and I left Vail, Colorado, at 9:30 a.m. We drove Interstate 70 to Grand Junction, where Dennis wanted some healthy groceries. I’m from North Dakota — the land of Velveeta — so I am just along for the ride. Dennis and I have known each other for 25 years and our life dreams have found their confluence in Listening to America.
This is the first in a series of about a dozen dispatches from Clay Jenkinson we’ll publish over the next several weeks chronicling his recent journey following the Colorado River and neighboring region.
Clay Jenkinson's Mom

Mother’s Day

My mother has been dead for five years now. She died at 86, without spending a single night in a hospital.
Browning, Mont. — Wandering about what is called the “Hi-Line,” U.S. 2 and the tracks of the Great Northern Railway, I came upon this obelisk monument to Lewis and Clark.
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John and Elaine Steinbeck Somerset

Happy Birthday John Steinbeck

Bismarck, N.D. — Normally I don’t observe the birthdays of my literary and historical heroes. I know Jefferson’s birthday (April 13, 1743) and Shakespeare’s (April 23, 1564), and Bertrand Russell’s (May 18, 1872), and Samuel Johnson’s (September 18, 1709), and not many more, at least by day of month.…
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Sunset

To Be or Not To Be On I-94

Bismarck, N.D. — I was having a conversation about death and the afterlife with a friend the other day. The question: is death the end — oblivion and complete disintegration — or is it the portal to something else? And if something else, what does that something else entail?
Pine Ridge and the River Platte, from above

32,000 Feet Over the Pine Ridge

EDWARDS, Colo. — I flew from Bismarck, N.D., to Denver the other day to give a lecture. After the usual delays, the plane left Bismarck at about 10:30 a.m.