Wandering Around in the Desert
Jan. 10-13 Twentynine Palms, CA When we had picked this town out on the map, it was mostly because I knew we didn’t want to be in Palm Springs or its neighboring fancy resort towns. This would be an entirely different kind of place, a counterculture oasis. It was...
Snow and The Sun Dagger
Jan. 7-10 Santa Fe and Flagstaff Many of our friends seem to be in various stages of moving to Santa Fe, NM. The brother of one of our close Boston friends is running for Mayor here. Others, who have established themselves already in Santa Fe, participate in the...
Hangings , Helium and Headcolds
Jan. 5-6 From Gainesville, TX to Tucumcari, NM All the sinners from the Bible Belt must have migrated to Texas. As we arrived at our Gainesville B&B at dinner time, John discovered that this town was the site of the largest mass hanging in US history. Forty-two...
A Close Call in the Bible Belt
Jan 5-6 From Natchez, MS to Gainesville, TX Driving through Mississippi and northern Louisiana, we were struck by the economic hardship and lack of public services in Scotlandville, Sugartown and other small rural communities. They seemed to have only God to get them...
New Orleans and Natchez
Jan. 2-5 New Orleans To sweeten our long days in the car, we listened to an audiobook of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. Steinbeck found a way, on his 1960 journey across the country, to ask people about what was going on in America. The issues they worried...
The Frozen Confederacy
We arrive at Vicksburg, where the white South is frozen in time.
A Rock N Roll New Years
Monday Jan. 1, 2018 Day Five: New Year’s Eve at Graceland (part two) It turned out that the real New Year’s Eve party was in the lobby, where piano player Rob Haynes was bringing Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles and Elvis back to life. He was banging the keyboard...
And So It Begins
“You do not take a trip. The trip takes us.”—John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley Thursday Dec. 28, 2017: Day One: The Cold Start: We left Boston on this bright sunny Thursday morning, hoping to say goodbye as quickly as possible to its temperature: only 6 degrees F....