I've been on the road for five weeks. I've seen sunsets in 360 degrees, Iowa so flat and its buildings so low that the sky feels bigger and more capacious than it is back home; I've seen Nebraska bursting with sunflowers and roads so empty you can lie down in the middle of them to … Continue reading Once Upon a Time in the West: The “Why Grad School?” Question and I-80 (and I-70, and I-15, and US-2, and US-6, and US-191, and US-313)
When my mother and I visited Amache at the end of June 2016, I didn't expect to learn anything I didn't already know--not from the meager National Park Service signage, attempting to tell a 'niche' ethnic history most people wouldn't know from Adam (Japanese Americans included).
It's rolling country, in case you didn't know. The flat is further west. Up by Atchison, up where Lewis and Clark came through, Kansas is glacial hills. South to El Dorado, it's hilly, too--tallgrass, hills, and bison (less impressive now, having recently come face to face with more than a few on Catalina Island). 1. … Continue reading 5 Things You Can Do in Kansas
The day my mother and I were to leave on what would be, for me, a month-long sojourn across the country, my uncle died. Or maybe the night before; there's some confusion about that. We were ripping across timezones and cellular data packets were getting lost to the void, so it's hard to know for … Continue reading Aloha, Missouri
They're stepping off the curb, near the city courthouse. "72 hours from now we'll be half an hour from getting married," she says. He says, "Holy shiza!" and she laughs. -- She's eighteen, just out of high school. She's taking a gap year, to work. She says she doesn't have any real callings or talents. … Continue reading Strange Tales from the Midwestern Front: What You’re Missing If You’re Not Forced to Take the Bus in a Mid-Sized City in Michigan
The Pullman airport is six miles from the city of Moscow, Idaho, and it takes me just under two hours to walk it. A taxicab running trips between the airport and town passes me five times, back and forth, and I use the time between our encounters to gauge how far from town I must … Continue reading Why I Walked to Moscow, Idaho & Why it has Nothing to Do with My Carbon Footprint
