Assessing My Steinbeck Trip at Week Four
Sunday, May 26 2024
It has been about four weeks since Clay began retracing John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley Tour, shadowing the famous author’s 10,000-mile trek around the USA. Clay makes some observations on the difference between his trip in 2024 and Steinbeck’s 1960 journey.
- Published in Features
The Romance of America’s Greatest Game: An Emotional Visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame
Tuesday, May 21 2024
I don’t know what I expected when I drove my Airstream into Cooperstown, New York to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame. It was an emotional day.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Clay’s Personal Cartographic Detail of the Steinbeck Journey Through New England
Saturday, May 18 2024
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).…
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Sports, Lawn Care and Fishing at Karen’s Diner — Calais, Maine
Thursday, May 16 2024
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.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Across Iowa
Saturday, May 04 2024
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.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
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