Leaving the northern-most planned destination in Colorado, I headed south on Route 25, perhaps to reach New Mexico. However, the traffic was congested in the Denver area. My thoughts went back to my travels in 1962, when I circled and crisscrossed around America for 7 months and over 20,000 miles. Today, at age 80, I am…
Category: Travel
Pictures from Rocky Mountain National Park
See some additional photos from my visit to Rocky Mountain National Park, which I wrote about here!
A Morning Conversation and Heading up and into the Rockies
I was ready to head up into the mountains, but the coffee wasn’t quite ready, and I asked the other person waiting where he was heading. “Just finished my delivery of Kia’s. Headed back to the St. Louis.” Burt, a truck driver, was a delight to speak with as he readily shared his life as a…
Travels Across the Great Plains: Breadbasket of America
After passing through St. Louis and the Jefferson National Historic Site, it was my intent to get a good number of miles on Interstate 70. However, with the sun setting in the West, it was best to find a place to stay for the night. I pulled over when I saw a bargain “8” motel….
On the Road: Springfield to St. Louis
Leaving the Lincoln Home, I headed toward St. Louis, where I would cross the Mississippi, and pass near the Jefferson Memorial Site, recognizing the beginning of the Lewis & Clark’s Expedition. This journey was a result Jefferson’s success in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase and wanting to get a report on the land acquired. As a…
Lincoln Home National Historic Site: July 23
Reflecting upon a day’s immersion at the Lincoln Home in Springfield, IL, the impact and meaning grips me with more power than I realized. Interacting with so many people, from the visitors to frontline Park Rangers to Supervisors to the Director of History and Education to the superintendent, brought multiple moments of fun-filled exchanges that…
Cuyahoga Valley National Park: July 21
Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, located between Cleveland and Akron, is a most amazing natural wonder for many reasons. Beginning with the geological history, there are a number of intriguing features. First, the glacial action carved such contours that the Cuyahoga River begins to the East of the North end of the park, from underground…
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site And Botanical Gardens: July 19
A final day in New York, before moving west toward Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, and it has been filled with inspiring moments from history at the Theodore Roosevelt (T.R.) Inaugural Site in Buffalo. Although I have visited Niagara Falls two times, I had never been to the city where Olmsted and Vaux designed one of…
Niagara Falls: July 18
Visiting once more the majestic, picturesque, overwhelming power of Niagara Falls, so many thoughts flowed through my mind after the performance of the Olmsted Play. In some uncanny way, the approach to presenting the play was grasped by the power of the relationship between H.H. Richardson and Olmsted. My mind kept going back to the State…
On the Road: From Albany to Niagara Falls
On the road West through central New York, I was fascinated with the rolling hills and valleys, the fields with cows grazing peacefully, the land which Olmsted visited to be trained as a “scientific farmer,” which was his first immersion as a potential career. I reflected back on my years at Cornell, beginning with research…
Dispatches From Olmsted 