The road to Falling Spring is a destination in itself. Missouri highway delivers you there. And Falling Spring Mill has been restored. But wait. There’s more. A little further down the road, Greer Spring busts out of a mountainside gushing … Read More
Mother turns 100
Route 66 has provided much of the wallpaper to our lives. Music and food. Art and architecture. Grapes and wrath. This year the Mother Road celebrates her 100th birthday. She’s aged in fits and starts, triumphs and tragedies, but we … Read More
When a restaurant becomes more than a meal
Heading west on I-44, we hit a late-spring snowstorm that quickly turned the roads into a luge run. So we retreated to a town called Traveler’s Repose to let the snowstorm pass. Well, that was the name of the town … Read More
History in the Shadow of Six Flags
The end of prohibition killed the Smith brothers’ bootleg business. No matter. They opened two legal taverns, one in Eureka, one in Fenton. And when Route 66 came through Pacific, Missouri, in 1935 they opened the Red Cedar Inn. The … Read More
Pegleg Shannon’s County
Shannon County is a synonym for wilderness, with a few small settlements scattered across the deep woods. It’s a great place to hide, or get lost. From border to border, as the Jacks Fork River slices across its face, Shannon … Read More
A Secret D-Day Rehearsal Became The Tigers’ Most Devastating Loss
On the road between Kingdom City and Auxvasse, thousands of travelers pass a sign designating a stretch of Highway 54 as Exercise Tiger Memorial Highway. Most of them don’t know what Exercise Tiger means. It’s the story about the ambush … Read More
Smash Rock on the Jacks Fork
Every year in early spring, Smash Rock stands between me and inner peace. As my rendezvous with Smash Rock approaches, I concentrate on little else. My sole mission hardens into a successful negotiation past this looming Lorelei. Smash Rock could … Read More
Return to the scene of the crime
This is a peek at a Missouri Life Magazine cover coming together. I’m at the helm of the second boat. The day before, that boat was damn near sideways in a thirty-knot wind. The story was fun, sanitized a bit … Read More
Alone in the Wilderness with coyotes
Downriver, I found a suitable gravel bar where I beached my canoe to climb the riverbank and set up camp deep in the Irish Wilderness. Because the wilderness deserves a “leave no trace” campsite, I packed light: a tent, sleeping … Read More
Surprise, Missouri
As I paddled down the Eleven Point River, I knew that within the better part of a county in every direction, I was a population of one. This is the Irish Wilderness. Along the river there used to be a … Read More