A cold corridor in the Truman Library recreates Berlin’s postwar reality: refugees who didn’t freeze to death had nothing to eat. Enter the Berlin Airlift. A photo captures the spirit of that humanitarian armada: an American plane flies one hundred … Read More
Wild Woods
The music you bump into in these remote hamlets can be surprising. So are the venues. Of all the hundreds of places I’ve played, none resonated so sweetly as a spot just a stone’s throw off Highway 19. Atop the … Read More
Connie, the KC Cutie
Connie stays across the river from downtown Kansas City at the old municipal airport. She’s known more formally as a Lockheed Constellation, the airline workhorse of the 1950s. If you saw her, you’d instantly recognize the plane, with her curvy … Read More
Roller Coaster to the Spring
MO Highway 19 south to Falling Spring, on the edge of the Irish Wilderness
Puzzle Heaven. Puzzle Hell.
Sleeper, Missouri, hides some big stories. Years ago two trains collided in Sleeper. The trains piled up like accordions, and only a jigsaw puzzle master could put them together again. Appropriate, as I approached Nancy Ballhagen’s Puzzles, a major distributor … Read More
There’s Silver in Those Rails
A solitary figure sat trackside on a bench outside the La Plata train depot. Approaching him I noticed he held a portable two-way radio. “Train on time?” I asked. “Three hours behind,” he said in halting speech. He didn’t seem … Read More
Sign language.
We’re not traveling. So we peeked in the rearview mirror at some of our favorite signs along the road trip into America’s hidden heart.
Constable Wyatt Earp, Lamar, Missouri
Prescott, Arizona likes cowboys. And whiskey. Always has. In the Palace saloon, where the piano player sits on a beer keg, they talk about Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers. Never knew much about the Earp brothers beyond the Hollywood … Read More
The Bronze Bard
The one-two punch of Santa Fe’s rarified air (7200 ft elevation) and Canyon Road shopping kicked my ass. I spied a bench, only partially occupied by an old friend from back home. Tipped my cap to this bronzed bard. He … Read More