DISPATCHES FROM THE ROAD

Clay's personal cartographic detail of his Steinbeck journey through New England the last two weeks.
Clay’s personal cartographic detail of his Steinbeck journey through New England the last two weeks. Over the next few months, Clay is shadowing Steinbeck’s 10,000-mile trek around the USA (and making a few detours of his own).…
Sitting in the Airstream, Rocinante. I had a delightful interview with Steinbeck biographer Jay Parini of Middlebury College in Vermont.
It’s too early to draw conclusions about the country’s mood, but this is what I have heard in two weeks on 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 …