Along the Trail of the Mountain Spirits in the Gila National Forest of New Mexico are the fascinating Gila Cliff Dwellings. This site is in the National Forest, and is jointly administered by the Park Service and the Forest Service. Unlike the ruins at Mesa Verde, these are largely un-excavated and receive relatively few visitors. […]
We were in Franklin, Indiana, and Rob Shilts was waiting for us, out of the rain, beneath a marquee that dazzled with a half-mile of neon and a thousand chasing lamps. SHREK, it proclaimed, today at 2 and 7:30 PM. Shilts has been involved in Franklin Heritage, the local historic preservation group, for more than […]Read More
September was cold in the Montana mountains, and we’d just enjoyed an afternoon soak in the hot springs at White Sulphur Springs. We debated spending the night. After all, it was hunting season, and there was live music at the local hangout. There were a few other things to poke into around town, too, including […]Read More
One of the pleasures, and occasional challenges, of traveling away from the main routes is finding a good local restaurant. Forty years ago, around the time we got married, Patti gave me a copy of the first edition of Jane & Michael Stern’s book Roadfood. It’s a listing, with a few details, of great, mostly […]Read More
By Anna and Tom Burkett It was middle of the night dark when four of us piled into the car. I’m Anna, and I last traveled with my parents last summer to Fiddle Camp and the Schoodic Peninsula in Maine. My cousin Kelsey was with us, who was with them for a visit to a […]Read More
Say “Wisconsin” to almost anyone, and they’re likely to think of cheese. There is cheese in this story, but you’ll have to wait for it. This is a trip along US 8, which runs through pinewoods, across rivers, and along lakes in the north woods. As we approached the highway strange creatures appeared out of […]Read More
By Tom and Patti Burkett If you were a West Virginia coal miner, life was especially hard in the early 1930s. The Great Depression had pulled the bottom out of the coal market, and there were no jobs to be found anywhere in the region. When Eleanor Roosevelt visited a friend in Morgantown, she saw […]Read More
If you’re headed to or from Houston, or New Orleans, or Pensacola along the Gulf Coast, it’s easy to get on I-10 and zip through the bayou country. If you do, you’ll be missing out on some entertaining and unexpected attractions. After crossing on the Galveston-Port Bolivar ferry at sunset, we drove on a couple […]Read More
By Maggie Burkett In eastern Montana, the Yellowstone River is lined with rimrock cliffs that extend more than a hundred feet in the air. They posed a substantial obstacle to settlers moving west, as well as migrating herds of bison, deer, and elk and the wolves that followed them. At one point, about thirty miles […]Read More
When you’re heading south next time, especially if your path takes you close to the Great Smoky Mountains, carve out some time to drive the Forest Heritage National Byway in the Pisgah National Forest. More later on specific sights along the route, but first we’d like to share a taste of the fascinating story of […]Read More
We see a lot of folks with the North America map on the side of the RV, and we’ve visited with friends and acquaintances at camping get-togethers enough to know that making collections of travel memorabilia is a common pastime. We ourselves collect national park magnets (only from parks in which we’ve actually camped) to […]Read More
By Patti Burkett Sometimes, I have to admit, it can be exhausting traveling with Tom. He's relentless in his pursuit of things to see and do. Every time we go on a trip he spends weeks preparing an itinerary. He looks at dozens of websites and books, and the google map he comes up with looks […]Read More
Recently we saw a copy of a letter posted on the wall of a museum. It was dated November third. The letter said. “The federal government is taking your land for a project of vital national importance. We’re going to pay you fair value for it, and you have to be gone by December 15.” […]Read More
New Haven Connecticut is probably best known as he home of Yale University, and if you go there, you would certainly enjoy a walk around that iconic campus. But New Haven has some other things to offer that are not quite as obvious. Connecticut is nicknamed the nutmeg state. Early ship captains, and some industrious […]Read More
When Mike Carmichel was twelve years old, he accidentally dropped a baseball in a bucket of paint. “Interesting,” he said to himself, and kept dipping it. Then he wrapped a wire around it to use as a handle and invited his friends to help. That was the beginning of this story. It continues when Mike […]Read More
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