The Solar Eclipse of 2024: A View From Chaco Canyon
Monday, April 15 2024
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.”
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Witnessing the Astounding Diversity of America in 24 Hours
Monday, April 08 2024
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.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
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
Wild Horses in the Badlands: Wildlife or Livestock?
Monday, March 18 2024
There’s horse trouble in Theodore Roosevelt National Park which is home to a feral herd of about 200 equines.
- Published in Features
A Beached Whale: Then and Now
Sunday, March 10 2024
Recently a humpback whale washed ashore at Virginia Beach. Even in death, it’s a magnificent creature. The beached whale reminded me of an incident during the winter of 1805-1806 at Fort Clatsop on the Pacific Ocean.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Fort Dilts, North Dakota — Video Dispatch
Friday, February 09 2024
Clay takes us to Fort Dilts, North Dakota, a hastily-made sod fort built in 1864 by a party of would-be gold miners to fend off attacks by the Lakota. However more perspectives to the story should be considered.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
A Visit to Bear Butte, South Dakota — Video Dispatch
Monday, January 15 2024
Clay reports from Bear Butte in South Dakota, a site sacred to the Lakota, Cheyenne and other Native American tribes. It’s near Sturgis, S.D., home of the famous annual motorcycle rally.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Wounded Knee Creek — Video Dispatch
Tuesday, December 05 2023
Clay visits the site of the tragic Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota where nearly 300 Lakota were slaughtered by soldiers of the U.S. Army on December 29, 1890.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The Heroism of SuAnne Big Crow — Video Dispatch
Tuesday, November 14 2023
On a visit to the Black Hills and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Clay happened upon the youth center dedicated to the memory of SuAnne Big Crow, the Oglala basketball star. Clay shares a little of her heroic story in this short video.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Some Thoughts on the Near-Extinction of the Buffalo
Tuesday, October 17 2023
Ken Burns’ new documentary The American Buffalo airs this week on PBS. Like everyone I’m eager to see how he explores the history surrounding this iconic creature.
- Published in Features
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