My ride and me, we never used a GPS. No compass. No MapQuest. We abstained from sextants. For the first third of this journey, a state highway map was our only guide. Deeper into our drive, untraveled roads became harder … Read More
Winter Water
The air was cold, a few degrees above freezing. A north wind tried to aggravate us, but Cora blocked its best gusts. Cora is the island on our port side. We’d survived the toughest part of the trip: launching a … Read More
Locked Out Again
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
Big Bird. Big River.
A dozen eagles fly and fish around Clarksville. The birds are sparse & spread out amid mild weather. Several telescopes zoom in on clusters of eagles and big nests. But the weather is poised to turn sharply colder. In a … Read More
Chapel in the Snow
Just off the highway, inspiration awaits. Fay Jones did the chapel. Mother Nature threw in the snow.
Empty Faces, Hollow Eyes
Damn depressing. But they deserve a shout. Thousands of these old family farmhouses sit empty and decaying. Each house was a setting for love, laughter, life. But during the 1980s and thereafter, thousands of families were driven from their homesteads. … Read More
What Would Jesse Do?
Along the road we saw a sign, a real jolt to libertarians, especially those who liberated cash from banks and trains.
Yard Bargains
“How much for books?” “Fifty cents.” Dan didn’t quibble. He knew what he wanted. Hard back classics. He rummaged through several cardboard boxes and plucked out a half dozen keepers. A collection of Jack London short stories. Aldous Huxley’s Brave … Read More