It was 10:00 p.m. My car, thirsty for petrol, urged me to exit the interstate and find fuel. Just ahead, Kingdom City waited with the tools to fill my tank. And my stomach. Kingdom City isn’t really a city. … Read More
Devil’s Real Estate
Devil’s Well is a big stomach, says one of America’s preeminent geologist-explorers. It’s Mother Nature’s idea of an indoor pool, except that it’s cold and dark and underground and scary as hell, hence the name. It is the world’s most … Read More
Greed, Pride, and the Lake of the Ozarks
Much of the development at the Lake of the Ozarks can be traced back to one event. Flash back to the late 1960s. In a move that forever changed the face and fortune of the lake, then-Governor Warren Hearnes entered … Read More
Hope and Change
Canton lured me back for an overnight, where I went to a free show at the college. A young comedian mesmerized the crowd with juggling and jokes, then the juggler asked the young lady sitting next to me to assist … Read More
Erifnus Likes My Bike
Hopped on my ’67 Schwinn Continental–taxicab yellow from the factory–and rode to the grocery store. We’ve made this trip for years now, almost daily, bringing back cargo in cloth bags hanging from the handlebars. Erifnus sits at the curb with … Read More
Rafting the Mississippi
It isn’t a big raft. In terms of cubits, it’s a two-by-four. But it has a big back yard, a mile wide and 1800 miles long. And it became the summer palace for a big thinker who has no … Read More
Driving Wild
Cresting a hill we began our descent, curving and swerving downhill, face to face with vistas through the tall pines and hardwoods. Along this highway at the tips of its gravel spines, springs and waterfalls push to form their own … Read More









