A loose continuation of the post Incidental Notes From the Road – link here. “I dropped south to New Harmony, Indiana, twelve miles downstream from Grayville, Illinois where I’d spent that first grim night.”From Blue Highways: A Journey Into America, by William Least Heat-Moon. October 12, 2021I’m standing in New Harmony, in front of the …
Santa Claus strikes me as being a bit creepy. But I’m getting ahead of myself. After getting over my Bruceville gloom (see previous post), I set out, eastbound, for French Lick, hometown of hated former Boston Celtic, Larry Bird. “The hick from French Lick,” they called him. Still do I guess. Back in the day, …
“Leaving home was one of the easiest big decisions I’ve ever made. But once I left home, continuing the journey until it reached some kind of sensible conclusion or fully played itself out, was another matter – one of the hardest things I’ve ever attempted.” ~ William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways. ‘Just drive,’ I tell …
The twelfth in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. I’m southbound out of Pendleton, Oregon on Highway 395, a two lane sluice through broad fields of ranchland on either side of this solitary highway. Acres of yellow cheatgrass undulate in a light breeze and a bright morning sun just topping …
The eleventh in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. It’s seven in the morning and it’s toasty inside The Rainbow Cafe in Pendleton, Oregon. Outside it’s, as my daddy used to say, colder than a well digger’s ass. That is, the temp is somewhere south of 30 degrees. I’ve never …
The tenth in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. Antelope, Oregon marks the terminus of State Route 293 and the junction with State Route 218, which takes me back to U.S. 97 and the one time, “Wool Capital of the World.” Route 218 is just as isolated as 293 which …
Banner Photo: Dorris, California The eighth in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. Eugene Charles Valla spent four years of his young life hanging onto the edge of his boyhood dream. Valla was 21 years old in 1947, when he was signed to a minor league contract with the New …
Banner photo: Shipshewana, Indiana Dan, author of the site, Departing in Five Minutes, leads this week’s Lens Artists Challenge, and he’s selected the topic, Unbound: Escaping Your Confines And Seeing The World. Once again, I’m combining the Lens Artist Challenge with my Monthly Monochrome series. Dan writes, “From a day trip to a road trip …
The fourth in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. From Sonora Junction, Highway 395 heads due east before dipping to the south and finally cutting back east to enter Bridgeport. Crane your view to the right and you see the picture of green, brown and yellow grazing land backdropped by …
The third in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. Between Knight’s Ferry and Chinese Camp is 21 miles of rolling ranchland. Out here the land is split into parcels, each section defined by the brainchild of an Illinois farmer named Joseph Glidden. Glidden’s invention would forever put its stamp on …
The Life in My Years 