Natchez should be on everyone’s bucket list. It’s like no other city. I think of it as a caricature of the Old South – a complex juxtaposition of opulence, poverty and fascinating historic sites amidst graceful oak trees draped with Spanish moss. Like Vicksburg, farther north, Natchez sits atop bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. But […]
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Back in the 1980s I worked for a guy at Nissan who was nuts about covered bridges. He even produced a coffee table book about them; it mostly sold in Japan, for some reason. I spent an interesting weekend with him visiting the covered bridges of Georgia and Alabama and have enjoyed them ever since. […]
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The coast of Oregon is one of the West’s most outstanding road trip destinations. It’s a virtually nonstop succession of geographic eye candy. But it’s also not just a pretty face. It urges visitors to get out of their cars and roll up their sleeves. The possibilities for active involvement include hiking, beachcombing, tidepool exploring, surfing […]
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You may not have noticed, but I’ve been adding new posts to this blog every five days for the past 2-3 months. Effective now, that interval will increase to every seven days. My main motivation in doing the blog is to find a way to challenge myself and keep busy during retirement. It’s done that […]
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In September, for the first time, I took a road trip for the specific purpose of gathering content for this blog. The trip was a counterclockwise loop out of Atlanta. Targeted destinations included Savannah, Beaufort, Francis Beidler Forest, Blue Ridge Parkway, Ohio River Valley, a county with 31 covered bridges, the Natchez Trace Parkway and […]
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Francis Beidler Forest near Harleyville, SC When it comes to landscapes, we in California like to think we have everything – the highest mountains (in the lower 48), the snowiest place, the hottest and driest desert, the most beautiful coastline, the oldest and tallest trees, and so on. We’re also the number one farm state. […]
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Vicksburg, Mississippi I’ve been to some of the major Civil War battlefields before – places like Antietam, Gettysburg and Shiloh. But this was my first visit to what was probably the most important military engagement of the War Between the States. That’s Vicksburg, Mississippi, or, as it’s officially known, Vicksburg National Military Park. It was […]
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