DISPATCHES FROM THE ROAD

Rocinante keys

Were They Dreaming? A Rare Visit Inside John Steinbeck’s Iconic Rocinante

Clay and sidekick, Russ Eagle, spend time hanging out in John Steinbeck's historic truck camper, Rocinante.
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Clay and friends enjoy a late summer afternoon on a remote section of the Missouri River in central Montana. (Photo Bryan Hall)

Four Perfect Days

Clay and friends are just off four perfect days canoeing remote sections of the Missouri River in central Montana.
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Clay Jenkinson's Listening to America Airstream trailer and truck at a campground

Assessing Two Years on the Road in My Airstream 

Clay assesses the good and bad as he wraps up his second season traveling America's byways in his 23' Airstream.
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Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast. It was near here in early 1806 that Sacagawea insisted she be allowed to join the expedition team going to see a whale that had washed up on the shore.

Sacagawea and the Blue Whale

Sacagawea’s insistence that she be allowed to join the reconnaissance team heading to see the great beached whale is one of the rarest instances in the entire Lewis and Clark journey where we hear her voice.
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Earlier this week, Clay made a pilgrimage to the site called Dismal Nitch, where Lewis and Clark were marooned for six miserable days in November 1805. There is a somewhat confusing academic debate about which of the three or four identical nitches within a two-mile stretch of the Columbia River estuary is the actual, official, certified Dismal Nitch. This seems to have sent Clay into a bit of a spin.

Ode to Dismal Nitch

Has our friend Clay Jenkinson been too long alone on the Lewis and Clark Trail?
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Meriwether Lewis was ignobly shot in the buttocks by his visually impaired hunting companion, Pierre Cruzatte, on their return to civilization in 1806

How Meriwether Lewis’ Unfortunate Hunting Mishap Brought to Mind the Bounty of American Consumer Capitalism

On the 221st anniversary of Meriwether Lewis’ hunting calamity, Clay ponders salt, macrobiotics, and an earlier extended personal journey on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
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My Montana Summer

Clay Jenkinson reports on his month-long adventure crisscrossing Montana in the long-since-passed footsteps of Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery.
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Clay Reads and Riffs on Huckleberry Finn While Sitting Beside the Mighty Mississippi — Video Dispatch

Earlier this summer, Clay Jenkinson traveled to the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers at Cairo, Illinois. Sitting on the banks of the Mississippi, Clay read from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and talked about the novel and its author, Mark Twain, who enshrined this mighty river deep in American mythology. 
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Clay Checks in From Missoula — Video Dispatch

Clay reports in on his adventures at the conclusion of his recent Montana Lewis and Clark Cultural Tour.
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A statute of Lewis and Clark and the expedition's

Lewis, Clark and Their Dog Seaman — Video Dispatch

Clay checks in from St. Charles, Missouri, near the mouth of the Missouri River, at Frontier Park, on one of the finest Lewis and Clark statue groups in America.
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