Underway! Sag Harbor, New York or Bust
Tuesday, April 30 2024
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.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
John Steinbeck’s True Motivations for Hitting the Road in 1960
Thursday, April 25 2024
As Clay begins his great Travels With Charley journey, our resident Steinbeck specialist, Russ Eagle, weighs in on what spurred the Nobel Prize-winning author to take to the road in a custom truck camper and his dog in 1960.
- Published in Features
John Brown: A Remarkable American Story
Monday, April 01 2024
Hero, terrorist, martyr or madman? Clay examines the dramatic life of John Brown.
- Published in Features
Rereading Blue Highways — An Enduring Backroads Journal
Monday, March 25 2024
Originally published is 1982, Clay says William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways is still our best backroads manifesto.
- Published in Books
Chicago, Launch Point for Historic Route 66 — Video Dispatch
Sunday, March 24 2024
Clay visits the eastern takeoff point for historic Route 66 in downtown Chicago. Now largely superseded by the Interstate Highway system, Route 66 still looms large in American history and mythology.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Printed Maps and an Atlas: Old School, Indeed!
Friday, February 23 2024
We’re hard at work detailing plans to follow in the footsteps of John Steinbeck’s journey chronicled in Travels With Charley.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road