Hello Everyone, I hope you’re all having a wonderful week out there. This is going to be short and sweet this week, because I’ve been off the road and hanging out in New Orleans for most of it. After Mardi Gras, I started in on getting the rest of my photos from Mississippi edited and published and am almost completely caught up in that regard. Many thanks to my friend, Luke, for letting me crash at his place all week and use his internet to do so. I think you’ll find some pretty great photos in these posts, from the Mississippi Delta to the Gulf Coast. I enjoyed getting these photos up and hope you enjoy looking at them. It was a fast but amazing month in Mississippi.
Other than that, I’ve been catching up with some old friends, eating some wonderful New Orleans food and preparing for my dash across Texas. I’m not going to lie, Texas is a pretty daunting state. While I’m really looking forward to it, I’m trying to come up with a reasonable plan to see as much as I can in the 2 months I’ve allotted to be there. If y’all have any awesome must-see places, please feel free to leave me a comment on this post…
Hey y’all, it’s time for another edition of This Week on the Road. It’s going to be a short one this week because I only really spent the first couple of days of the week on the road. Since Saturday I’ve been relaxing here in New Orleans, spending time with my friends and enjoying the Mardi Gras weekend. I did have a great few days along the coast to wind up my time in Mississippi though, and wanted to share what I got up to out there.
My week started in Pascagoula in the rain, but I quickly moved on to Ocean Springs. I really liked this quaint and quiet seaside town with its thriving artists community, pleasant bars, and good restaurants. It seemed like a vibrant and livable place. My first stop was a restaurant I’ve wanted to get to for a while: The Shed Barbecue and Blues Joint. The Shed is a South Mississippi Institution, and occupies a huge, ramshackle building just north of the interstate. The Shed is the kind of place that chains have been trying to emulate for a long time, but with little success. The place is full of old beer and traffic signs, mismatched furniture and dollar bills hanging from the ceiling. It’s the real deal though with great food, wonderful employees and an all around good feel to it. I went with the ShedHed Sampler which came with all seven of their smoked meats and three sides. For $26 I didn’t expect too much, but what came out was amazing. It was a tray piled high with food, enough to fill me up that night, and also for lunch and dinner the next day as well. It was a great meal and experience and I will definitely come back to The Shed in the future. After dinner, I went for some live music and a few beers at the Glory Bound Gyro Co. on Government Street. It was a little chilly, but not too cold to enjoy the outdoor seating area which had a beachy feel to it. I sat by the palm tree and enjoyed some acoustic music there, and later popped in for a quick beer at a place called The Juke Joint. I really liked this divey bar in a hundred year old house a mile or so from the main part of downtown as well.
Hello Everyone! It’s been another amazing week on the road, dodging the rain, learning some history and thankfully catching some breaks in the weather to get some cool shots of some wonderful small towns as well. I’ve got a lot of photos that need to be edited and published, but I’ve really enjoyed taking them and am looking forward to getting to them ASAP. This week started in Vicksburg, took me down to the one-time State Capital of Natchez, up the Natchez Trace Parkway through Port Gibson to Jackson, east to Meridian, northwest to the Choctaw Indian Reservation and then due south to the coast here in Pascagoula. It’s been a busy week with lots of miles clocked, but I’ve seen some amazing places along the way. I want to give a big shout-out to one of my readers, Todd, who gave me a lot of suggestions for this week, all of which were spot-on. Thanks Todd!
After I left y’all last week, I had a pretty quiet night there in Vicksburg. Thursday morning I woke up early and headed straight for the Old Courthouse Museum high above town. I had a nice chat with one of the men working there as I entered, and then had a great long wander through the collection. I realized at some point that I had been there before, but it’s been at least a decade. I really enjoyed it. There was a hammer made from the wreck of the Star of the West, some original Dix banknotes (Dix is 10 in French, and people used to say they had some “dixies”, which then offered up “Dixieland” and the rest is history), the tie Jefferson Davis wore at his inauguration, an original Teddy Bear presented to a local child by Theodore Roosevelt himself and so much more. The courtroom itself has been nicely preserved, and I loved the swivel seats for the jury – it was probably all the rage when they were installed in 1890…
Hi Guys, it’s that time of the week again. It’s been another great week on the road in Mississippi, and I’m happy to share some of the highlights with you here. My week started in Cascilla in the rural center of the state, led me on a quick loop through the Delta with night stops in Cleveland, Clarksdale and Greenwood and is ending right here in beautiful but rainy Vicksburg. It’s been a week of beautiful towns, incredible food, good music and some really great photo opportunities. Despite the gloomy weather which has been a pretty constant companion this week, my spirits are high and I’m enjoying myself out here. I’m finding some good balance and trying to stress less and enjoy more. In all, it’s been a pretty awesome week out here.
Storms came hard in Central Mississippi as my week began, with hail, tornadoes and damaging wind. I was grateful to my friend John and his family for giving me shelter from the storm last Wednesday night (and for two nights before that). By the time I left Thursday morning, the worst of the storms had passed although the clouds persisted. Shadow Catcher was a whole different vehicle with new shocks, and we no longer bounce down the road like Tigger. That would come in really handy on the less-than-ideal roads of the Delta. I went with stiffer shocks because it’s a big van, so it’s not a smooth ride, but it’s enormously improved on what it was last week.
Decending from John’s place in the hills and heading west on Route 8, I came out into the beautiful, pancake-flat Mississippi Delta. Cotton fields hemmed in the road, and the familiar sights of rusted out cars in front of old sharecroppers’ cabins made me feel like I was once again on familiar ground…
Hello Everyone,
It’s great to see you, and I’d like to extend a very warm welcome to our new subscribers this week, I’m happy that you’re here. It’s been a pretty quiet week here in Mississippi, but a busy one as well. I haven’t done a lot of traveling, but I’ve been to some pretty cool places and met some wonderful people. This week has brought me from Columbus back through to middle of the state with stops in French Camp, Kosciusko and Winona. I spent a couple of nights Cascilla in a pretty rural part of the state with my friend John and his family, and then wound up the week traveling northwest into the Mississippi Delta. Of all the time I’ve spent in Mississippi in the past, most of it has been in the Delta, so it’s pretty comfortable to me. I love it here, and have always been fascinated by the music and the culture. Sadly, I know that poverty levels in the Delta are high, and that this factor contributes to both the music and culture of the region, but I’ve also seen the region develop a reasonable tourism industry in the 15 years or so I’ve been coming here, and hope conditions continue to improve for the area’s residents. Regardless of any of that though, it’s always great to be back in the Delta.
When we last we spoke, I had just pulled into Columbus, in the far east of the state near the Alabama border. My first impressions of the town were good, but my lasting impressions were even better. I really found it to be a delightful and hospitable town full of history with surprises around every corner.
Hey Y’all,
It is great to be back on the road and it is great to be back writing This Week on the Road. I’ve missed you all, and this weekly post and this journey. While it was definitely good for me mentally to go back to work for a few months and then spend some quality time with my friends and family back at home, I feel really good and very blessed and happy to be back on the road.
I left home in Washington DC last Thursday and aimed for my dad’s place in Charleston, West Virginia. It was a cold and windy ride through the mountains, and snow whirled and blew as Shadow Catcher and I made our way west. The winter blast made me happy we were heading south and it felt good to have months ahead of us and only our plans and our wits to guide us. It was wonderful passing through and past some of the earliest destinations of this journey when we first set out way back in November of 2017. It was cold then too and the days were short, and my dad’s place was definitely a point of refuge as I got all of this off the ground. But driving past exits for Blackwater Falls and Weston and Morgantown and Harpers Ferry all brought a huge smile to my face. We’ve come a long way since then and it was good to take a drive down memory lane.
I spent 2 days with my Dad and Judy, and it was great to catch up with them and enjoy their company. I helped them with a few things around the house and they took me out to a nice meal. It’s always great to see them, and it was my last taste of home for a while.
We set off from Charleston on Saturday, headed west into Kentucky and then south from Lexington into Tennessee. This ride took us past even more wonderful memories from this journey…
Hey y’all,
I hope you’re all having a great 2020 out there and that the New Year has brought new plans and new hope. I know it has for me. I’m just checking in with you to let you know that I’m finally almost ready to get back on the road. I’ve been working hard these last few weeks to get everything done which needs to get done and leaves me with a clean slate as I head back down the highway.
First of all, my photo albums are almost all up to date. You can see these last four State Albums at the links below:
Hello Everyone! As I look ahead to 2020, I wanted to take a few minutes to look back at the years gone by and look ahead at what’s to come in the months and years ahead. Before I get into any of that though, I wanted to send a very big Thank You to all of you who have followed along on this adventure. It’s been a heck of a ride. Over the course of the last two years, I’ve learned a lot, seen and been to so many wonderful new places, made new friends and caught up with old friends I haven’t seen in many years. I’ve loved and lost and laughed and cried. There have been successes and failures, epic highs and tremendous lows. Through it all though, I know I wouldn’t have made it this far without my family, my friends and all of you wonderful people who have decided to come along for the ride. So thank you and a very Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2020 is a wonderful and prosperous year for us all.
The Good
When I set out on this journey, my hope was to be able to spend some real time in each state - to get to know it and find out what makes it tick. Each of our states is an island of sorts and while there are things that are common among them, each has its own history, characteristics, language, food and culture. Each is fascinating and different in its own way, and the best part of this trip for me has been figuring those things out. I would say that while I could have spent so much longer in each of the ten states I visited, I came away from each with a pretty good understanding of the things I went there to find. Not one has disappointed me and not one has failed to surprise me.
Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to wish all of you a very Happy Hanukkah and a Merry Christmas from me! I feel very fortunate to be home for the holidays this year and happy to celebrate with friends and family. I’ve got two new babies in my close friends network, so it has been amazing to see them start out on their journeys. I also had a great opportunity to go visit my brother for a week in New Hampshire and see his beautiful new home. We got two feet of snow when I was there, so I have gotten my shoveling in for the year. With any luck I’ll be very far south of where I am now before any more snow hits. It was truly beautiful and amazing to see, but I also remember why I tend to avoid the cold weather.
I’ve been home for a little over a month now and I’m finally starting to feel like I’m catching up on all the things that I need to do before setting out again. I’ve been to the doctor and the dentist, seen a lot of old friends and gotten to catch up with my family and help out around the house. I’ve also been hard at work on all of my projects and am starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. You can check out these updated photo galleries to see some of the progress I’ve been making:
Happy Thanksgiving y’all. For all of my American friends and followers, I hope you are somewhere warm and welcoming with friends and family around you, or at the very least somewhere where you are comfortable and can find some joy in the day. For my international friends and followers, I wish you a happy Thursday, but hope wherever you are you can find some time today to count your blessings and realize how much you have to be thankful for. This is something I am trying to start incorporating into my everyday routine, not something I reserve for one day in November.
For those of you who have to work today, believe me - I’ve been there. I’ve spent many years working in restaurants on the holidays. It was never a bad thing, but I was always a little surprised that people didn’t tip more on the holidays. If you find a restaurant open, remember that someone has had to give up their holiday to take care of you and you should be sure you take care of them. In my career as a guide, I also spent many years on the road during the holidays. I’ve celebrated Thanksgiving on the beach in Key Largo, in the snow in Stowe, Vermont, at Grand Canyon, in San Diego and probably plenty of other places I’ve now forgotten about. I enjoyed having groups to share the day with and sometimes cooked a traditional American Thanksgiving Day feast if the facilities were available. Cooking that kind of a meal for 14 people is quite the challenge - and if you only have a camp stove and an open fire even more-so. It’ s nice to be able to share your culture with people from abroad though, and Thanksgiving is one of the best days to do that in America.
This year, I’m very thankful to be home with my friends and family and to be able to celebrate the holiday with the people I care most about. I’m also thankful to have some time and internet access to get some work done while I’m here. I’ve been enjoying playing a lot of catch-up these last few weeks, trying to get this site in order, complete some projects that are long overdue and start to plan for the future. One of the things I’ve really been working on is my Gallery pages. I’ve been able to clean up, organize and add to three of my photo galleries over the last week or so, and I’d love it if you wanted to pop over and have a look. Here are the links where you can find them:
Long time, no see. Today marks the 2nd anniversary of me setting off in my van towards Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and the beginning of my life’s greatest adventure. The next 18 months brought me to 10 states which I explored in great depth, trying to gain a better understanding of the people, culture and history that make each special and unique. I was able to travel thousands of miles, take tens of thousands of photos, record 20 episodes of my podcast American Anthology and generally get a better understanding of my country and myself. It was by no means a vacation, nor was it an easy ride. I found myself working long days trying to publish on this blog as frequently as I could while constantly researching my next podcast episode, trying to eat well and get enough exercise and have a little bit of fun along the way. I battled deadlines, weather, loneliness and serious bouts with depression and self-doubt. But I came out the other side a better person with a better understanding of myself and the country I call home. Looking back, it was a hell of a ride.
After 18 months alone on the road, it was time to take a break. While not gone, my savings were seriously depleted as I hadn’t been able to make as much money as I had hoped while on the road. In addition, I desperately needed some conversation and companionship - something more than the fleeting conversation of a roadside tavern could provide. I found during my 18 month stretch that it was often harder to stop and see friends than it should have been - that while it was always wonderful and joyful to catch up with them, it sometimes brought me back lower than I had been when I arrived at the thought of being on my own again. It was almost as if sharing time with my friends reminded me of just how lonely the open road is. I think anyone who has done some any long-term solo travel would agree with that. It’s not the external world that gets you, but the one that revolves solely within your own head.
Hello Everyone!
I’ve had a wonderful week to myself here in Salt Lake City. It has been a week mainly of catch-up, on my work, on my sleep, on my photos, on my correspondences. I would like to think I’ve caught up to some degree, but I know I still have a podcast painfully half-complete and other projects I just didn’t get to. But, I feel rested and ready to set out on a new tour starting tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will set out with 7 people: 2 Americans, 4 Brits and 1 German and head back into the Rocky Mountains. We will be out for 12 days, spending 2 in Jackson and the Grand Tetons, 4 in Yellowstone, 3 in Glacier and then one in Ceour d’Alene before making our way on to Seattle. It’s a great trip full of mountain splendor, fascinating thermal features in Yellowstone, wonderful hikes and hopefully some great animal encounters. I met the group tonight, and they are very excited for the trip. I always take my energy from the group, and this one has gotten me excited to be heading back to the mountains.
