Curiosity, Travel and Change
The view from my home Not long before the world went into lockdown, I traded the city for the country. For almost 40 years, I lived on busy Philadelphia streets, awakened at times by sirens and horns. For all those years, I reveled in the messiness and color of urban life and prowled many corners …
As the Road Trip enters its final days, I’m paying homage to the band whose name I ripped off for my blog. One of the greatest bluegrass bands ever, which only lasted from 1973-74 and included Jerry Garcia on banjo, David Grisman on mandolin and Vassar Clements on fiddle. Doesn’t get much better than that. …
Installation with Dale Chihuly glass work I remember clearly the brouhaha in Philadelphia over heiress Alice Walton’s attempt to purchase Eakins’s The Gross Clinic for the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. Behind the claims that the painting was part of Philadelphia’s patrimony, were the barely veiled sneers about the painting being displayed in northwest …
Ok, sometimes you just gotta do the tourist shot Every self-respecting road trip across the Southwest should at least acknowledge Route 66. Even if you don’t organize your road trip around the “the Mother Road”, the vestiges of the 1926 highway appear at crossroads, on road signs, in souvenir shops, at truck stops, or in …
Continue reading "Standin’ on the Corner: Route 66 and travel nostalgia"
I admit that I humored Pete when he said he wanted the Road Trip to stop in Death Valley. He had grown up in California and had never seen it. I imagined a boring, flat, scorching, dusty wasteland hardly worth the detour. Boy, was I wrong. Death Valley is dazzling, in the way only an …
The cemetery at Manzanar In a time when anti-Asian hate crimes are on the rise, a visit to Manzanar reminds one that the most shameful anti-Asian hate crime in our history was committed by the American government during World War II. Guilty of nothing, but targeted because of their Japanese descent, 120,000 Americans were forcibly …
Continue reading "An American Concentration Camp: Manzanar, California"
The thirty-minute traffic jam in Sedona Arizona made me think about tourist destinations that have become victims of their own success. Sedona probably has the most picturesque setting of any town in America. Nestled against the majestic vermillion and ochre sandstone carved and jutted cliffs, with each building painted in some version of adobe, sage …
It's good to be reminded that people have always inhabited places we now call "wilderness". The Gila Wilderness, home to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, was the first wilderness area designated by Congress in 1924. I note that the Gila Wilderness claims to be the "first wilderness in the world", ignoring the fact that New York …
Continue reading "There were people here: The Gila Cliff Dwellings, New Mexico"
The edge of the Rio Grande at Grassy Banks Campground, Big Bend Ranch State Park No geographic feature signifies “BORDER” more than the Rio Grande River. Pete and I spent three days camping at the edge of the Rio Grande in Big Bend Ranch State Park, where the river is a murky green creek slowly …
Continue reading "“$5000 Fine for Crossing the Border”: Following the Rio Grande in Texas"
When the lady at the Havana Hotel says “you can turn left on the Riverwalk and walk to the touristy area” or “you can turn right and walk to the Pearl, where the locals go”, go to the right. This was my second time in San Antonio, and touristy or not, the Riverwalk is one …
Continue reading "“Where the Locals Go”: The Pearl Brewery, San Antonio"
