It was the summer of 1998. I’d finished my first year of college, and my brother was about to enter his first year of law school. In November of the year prior, we grabbed a United States map and started tacking all the places we wanted to visit. On Sunday, June 7, with no reservations made anywhere, we loaded the family van and departed on a 35-state, 36-day, 12,728-mile tour of the country.
On my PowerBook, I wrote a weekly journal that I emailed to my hometown’s newspaper. These columns ran under the name “Road Dispatches” and are republished here:
- “Hittin’ the Road; Columnist Prepares to Explore Our Country From Behind the Wheel“
- “Falling Water, Hot Wings, And Feathered Friends“
- “Visiting Appleseed, Lincoln, and the Great Midwest“
- “Reliving the Heady Days of the Old Wild West“
- “Encounters with Baseball, Llamas, and the Great Pacific; Close Encounters of the Woolly Kind“
- “From Neon Lights to Natural Sights, Adventure Continues“
- “Exploring the Mysteries of the Deep South“
- “Weary Travelers Return Home with Stories Found Only on the Road“