Route 96

In Lucas, Kansas, twenty-two miles east of Paradise and two-hundred miles west of Hell, is a true masterwork of kookdom: Samuel P. Dinsmoor’s “Garden of Eden.” An eccentric Civil War veteran (Union army) who married a woman 61 years his junior and fathered three children after the age of 80, Dinsmoor came in his dotage [...]

In 1542, the Spanish explorer Francisco Coronado crossed the Rio Grande northwards in search of the fabled El Dorado, city of gold. He didn’t find it, but he and his men became the first Europeans to lay eyes on the lands that are now Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas. By the time they got to Kansas, [...]

As you might surmise from the name, Carhenge is a full-scale replica of Stonehenge, accurate to the smallest detail–except for the rateher significant detail that, instead of massive stones, it’s made out of cars. Nebraska’s answer to England’s most famous Neolithic monument was erected by a farmer named Jim Reinders and his clan at a [...]

BUSTED. Leaving Diamondville, Wyoming after refuelling at Shufflin’ Chappie’s World’s Slowest Service Station, Jenkin was clocked at a neck-snapping 48 mph by patrolman Curtis something or other. $76 cash and a brief lecture by a guy in leather pants later, our heroes were back on the road, but Derek, who had been at the wheel [...]

What did we do in Utah? What didn’t we do in Utah? Oh the things we did in Utah, my stars! OK, OK. We just cut through the corner of Utah to pad out our total number of states.

Here’s a switch: a natural park noteable not for its scenic beauty or majestic grandeur but its basic, well, crappiness. Craters of the Moon National Monument, in Idaho about 140 miles east of Boise, is a huge field of crumbly, pointy black rock left over from some ancient Idahoan volcano. But it doesn’t look much [...]

More hard driving brought us back into the USA, once again stiffing plain Jane Washington as we made a beeline for glamorous, seductive Idaho. You Had To Be There Moment #77 (as seen on Entertainment Tonight) “Pssst! Onytay! Ixnay on the abybay!” –Tony Danza’s agent

Jenkin had to bust its little brown hump to do it, but we made it back to The Great White North in time to celebrate the Glorious Fourteenth (of August) with our own kind. Specifically, with my former Golden Words Has-Beens Colin and Colin, known to the world as Pepe and Big Bird, respectively. Big [...]

Six Road Movies to Inspire and Delight–and not one involving a Trucker and a Chimp! Raising Arizona Fargo, while fun, was redundant. Hilarious and hyper-kinetic, Raising Arizona is the only film the Coen brothers, or anyone else for that matter, ever need to make. If I start recounting my favorite parts, we’ll be here all [...]

Washington State, beautiful as it is, was underappreciated by our heroes as they drove Jenkin hard to make a return to native soil before the sun went down on my birthday. Isn’t Seattle kind of 1993 anyway? Speaking of the early 1990s, we did stop for burgers at a diner near Isa‘s home town of [...]