Route 96

It’s not just the title of a Supertramp album, it’s a way of life. While New Yorkers and Californians pick away at their sissy little yuppie breakfasts of yogurt and double lattes, in the heartland a nation of truckers and farmers and people with two first names is mowing down acres of hash browns and [...]

Eureka Springs redeemed itself, in a manner of speaking, with Miles’ Music Museum. We pulled in on a whim, Derek hoping we might see some nifty old guitars or tube amps or something. But Floyd Miles, a Southern patriarch who bore a remarkable resemblance to a (more) evil Colonel Sanders, proved to be something other [...]

Seems to me like you can’t throw a dead armadillo in the Upper South without hitting some Grand Ole Opry-style country music jamboree. And for some reason, every single one features a sad chinless old drunk named “Gummy Joe” or “Cheaplaughs Johnson” or “Gurner Pete”* as comic relief. Pictured here are “Stinky Willie” and Ida [...]

(Some jokes have to be made, regardless of quality.) Eureka Springs is a bizarrely upscale little town nestled in a steep Ozark valley. We had dinner there at an Arkansian-Greek restaurant (tsatsiki n’ grits, squirrel souvlaki, that sort of thing) and were serenaded by a buskin’ banjo-iste whose $100 hiking boots belied his Cletus the [...]

Front row: Pete. Middle row: Rob. Back row: Christ. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Gerald and Elna Smith were two normal, religious Arkansans until the night that Gerald awoke in a cold sweat (cue James Brown) from a terrible vision that strife and warfare in the Middle East would destroy the historic shrines [...]

Somewhere in the hill country between Pickles Gap (“home of barbecue fudge”), Dogpatch (of Li’l Abner “fame”), and St. Joe, we saw a little wooden sign on the side of the road that said “THINGS: Museum of Science Fiction and Movie Memorabilia,” with a bunch of tentacles coming off the word “THINGS.” Weirdness radar pinging, [...]

We toyed with the idea of doing a Bill Clinton tour of Little Rock’s seamier bordellos and fast food restaurants, but the city just didn’t grab us. Sorry, Bubba, Democrats just aren’t as kitschy as Republicans (see our visit to Bob Dole’s home town of Russell, Kansas, still ahead). Besides, we were already hearing the [...]