By jingo, does everybody in Hannibal, Missouri, think he’s Mark Twain—the driver on the tour bus, the guide at the Mark Twain Cave, even Mark Twain...
(Not Really) Roughing It on the Mark Twain Trail
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Renegade Roads
John Colter’s Favorite Mistake
Screeching and yelling “like so many devils,” the Blackfeet grabbed at the driftwood raft hovering above the swimming naked man. Although humiliated...
Following 19th-Century Ute Trails
Nathan Meeker raised a crop of distrust, anger and resentment among the Utes that led to disaster. In one of his first acts as agent, Meeker...
On Oklahoma’s Centennial Trail
And they said it would never last. But here she is, Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, hitting the century mark. Oklahoma, a...
On Oklahoma’s Centennial Trail
And they said it would never last. But here she is, Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, hitting the century mark. Oklahoma, a...
Civil War in the West
The Civil War was gonna be won in the West, Sherman told Grant after the second bloody day at Shiloh. Okay, so that was John Wayne’s William T....
Civil War in the West
The Civil War was gonna be won in the West, Sherman told Grant after the second bloody day at Shiloh. Okay, so that was John Wayne’s William T....
Loping Along the Guest Ranch Trail, Dude
The 4x4 pickup slides in the mud as Patricia Chesser and I head toward the branding corrals on the Burnt Well Guest Ranch outside of Roswell, New...
On the Trail of John Wayne
I'm in Madison County, Iowa, not to view all those covered bridges, though they are charming, but to pay tribute to a great American. Unheralded....
Tracking the Great Bear
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark wrote often of encounters with Ursus horribilis—grizzly bears—as they made their pioneering journey across the...
Tracking the Great Bear
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark wrote often of encounters with Ursus horribilis—grizzly bears—as they made their pioneering journey across the...
Whiskey-Runnin’ Whoop-Up Trail
The landscape along the Whoop-Up Trail was “rolling prairie, cut up occasionally by collies [coulees]—covered with short, dried up grass and prickly...