DISPATCHES FROM THE ROAD

Mt. Katahdin, which translates to “Greatest Mountain” in Penobscot, is the highest mountain in the state of Maine at 5,269 feet.
Just - In - Time Recreation center in Lewiston, Maine
Clay’s visits the recently reopened Just-In-Time recreation center in Lewiston, Maine.
Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts where Thoreau lived
Clay stops to visit Thoreau’s Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts as part of his Travels with Charley road trip.
May 9 / John Steinbeck, his dog Charley and his camper rig.
Clay visits John Steinbeck’s Sag Harbor home where the noted author began his 1960 cross-country journey, immortalized in Travels With Charley.
Fall Plowing, a 1931 oil painting by the Iowa born artist Grant Wood.

Across Iowa

Clay, on his way to Sag Harbor, N.Y., travels through Iowa, home to the famous American painter Grant Wood and journalist William L. Shirer.
Clay leaves his home in Bismarck, North Dakota, and heads east on a circuitous route to Sag Harbor, New York, where John Steinbeck began his famous 1960 cross-country journey.
Airstream
April is the cruelest month, says T.S. Eliot, perhaps because it brings you some false spring that often enough is put in its place by late blasts of winter. This is certainly true on the Great Plains. But I am leaving on my big John Steinbeck Travels with Charley Tour on April 27 …
Clay visits the site of the world’s first atomic chain reaction on the campus of the University of Chicago.
Clay and Dennis view the April 8, 2024 eclipse at Chaco Canyon in NW New Mexico.
My friend Dennis and I had the good fortune to experience the solar eclipse of 2024 at Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico. We could not have chosen a better place to observe the eclipse. Chaco Canyon is more than just another example of what used to be called Anasazi sites. It was designed from the beginning to serve as a lunar and solar “clock.”
A whirlwind journey takes Clay from Bismarck, N.D., to Brooklyn, N.Y., to Farmington, N.M. and a view of America’s extraordinary multiplicity.