Category Travel

The Man In the Mulch

Writing this blog has proven so far to be rewarding in many ways but sometimes it can become a bit of a rabbit hole. This post, for example, was initially going to be a short post, sharing an odd public…

Small Concussions In the Distance

I’ve driven across the United States dozens of times, usually a round trip every year for the past sixteen years, and before this year I’ve never had trouble finding things to do. The trips I take take time, usually two…

Cahokia: The Bodies at Mound 72

He is lying there on his back, you see his resplendency, at least in your mind’s eye, in the white conch shell beads he lies upon, the shells brought here to just outside modern-day St. Louis from the Gulf of…

Faithful and Confused

At two in the morning, California time, the number next to Georgia went from red to blue. Like some physics-class demonstration, the addition of mostly blue votes to the pool is changing the color of the pool, now more blue…

Cahokia: Digging in the Dirt

There are eleven UNESCO World Heritage cultural sites located in the United States, five of which are American Indian sites. Mesa Verde is by far the most famous with its cliff-dwellings, Taos Pueblo and Chaco not far behind, though Chaco…

Another Try at the Serpent Mound

It’s two hours out of the way along small highways, heading directly south of Columbus. Despite growing up in Ohio, and coming back to visit every year, I’d never heard of the town of Peebles. That’s not as surprising as…

An Ancient Circle In Central Ohio

It doesn’t look like much at first but it is astonishing nonetheless. A rampart of earth, grass-covered with trees here and there rises up before you, a gap in the rampart beckoning you in. And you go in, and it’s…

A Wrong Turn to the Flight 93 Memorial

There’s something wrong with the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania. I had taken a wrong turn and was trapped on the wrong highway through the endless forests of Pennsylvania when I passed a brown sign for the memorial. Oh, that’s…

The Unexpected Goats

We’re in two cars, my daughter’s car ahead of me, when they start to hear a noise from the front right wheel area. They walkie-talkie back to us in my FJ. I tell them to pull over at the next…