DISPATCHES FROM THE ROAD
The American Buffalo: Past and Future — Video Dispatch
Monday, September 11 2023
A video dispatch from my visit to Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s North Unit, where buffalo roam the Great Plains today.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Labor Day on the Glorious Little Missouri River — Video Dispatch
Tuesday, September 05 2023
I visited the Little Missouri River in the Badlands of North Dakota over the Labor Day weekend. Of all the rivers I know, the Little Missouri is the most sacred to me.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The Long Dreamed Airstream Joins the Listening to America Team
Monday, August 28 2023
A new chapter in my life begins. For the next several years, I plan to spend about half of the year on the road with my new Airstream trailer for our big humanities initiative, Listening to America. My plan is to get out on the open road, see the vastness of America and report my findings to you.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Nuking the Rocky Mountains
Tuesday, August 22 2023
Clay and two colleagues met near the town of Rifle in western Colorado to visit the spot where the federal government set off a nuclear device in 1969 to test the feasibility of using atomic bombs in oil “fracking.”
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The Tragic History of Sand Creek, Colorado
Sunday, August 20 2023
Clay drives into eastern Colorado to spend time at the site of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and then to Denver to see an exhibit on the tragic event at the History Colorado Center. .
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Visiting the Cabin Where Crazy Horse Was Killed
Tuesday, August 15 2023
Leaving South Dakota, I drove south to Fort Robinson in Nebraska, the site where the great Oglala leader Crazy Horse died. He was killed unnecessarily on September 5, 1877, at about 33.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Jackalopes, Black-Footed Ferrets and Big, Big Sky
Monday, August 14 2023
On Clay’s third day from Bismarck to Vail, he travels through Wall, South Dakota and visits the U.S. National Grasslands Visitor Center and Badlands National Park.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
A Day With Three Extraordinary Missile Men
Sunday, August 06 2023
I spent the day with three extraordinary men at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site learning the “on the ground” operations of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles during the Cold War.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
A Detour to the Home of American Writer Hamlin Garland
Tuesday, August 01 2023
As I continued my drive and not far into South Dakota, I visited the homestead of the Pulitzer Prize winning author Hamlin Garland.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The Forgotten Battle of Whitestone Hill, North Dakota
Monday, July 31 2023
My first stop was the lonely Whitestone Hill, a grass hill in south central, North Dakota. It is the site of the bloodiest battle in North Dakota history in 1863.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road