The next thing I rememberI am walking down the streetI’m feeling all rightI’m with my boysI’m with my troops, yeah —”Late in the Evening” by Paul Simon On a perfect Toronto evening for it, skies clear, the heat cooling to warmth, I go to see the Blue Jays play. It is my first time to […]
Jane Kansas
Posted inNews + Opinion
Tobermory, Ontario
My sister Sue and her husband Peter have a cottage on Lake Huron. Where other cottages in the area have TV antennae or dish satellites, Peter and Sue have an anemometer (and no doubt other instruments). Although both Sue and Peter are very very geeky, nerdy, media savvy and connected in their lives in Toronto, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Kansas Backdoors Canada
I’ll tell you right at the get-go how this chapter ends and you can be all wriggle and smug because you know more than I do as the story unfolds. This chapter ends with me tooting around the bays of St. Mary’s River in a big ass speed boat, on a day with a perfect […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Valley Motel
This is my room at the Valley Motel. Today I walk east from Manistique, Michigan under a dark sky. The weather forecast says no more rain but this is obviously a lie. I resign myself to plodding along under some kind of pissage but then in the middle of nowhere is the Valley Motel. The […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Me, myself and eye
July 13, 2001 East of Cooks, Michigan, in the tent, in the woods, hot, tired, sticky and just after having a little cry.
Posted inNews + Opinion
Fox County Park, Michigan
July 9 Day 70Fox County Park16.17 miles (26.02 kms) After leaving the BP Station I drop in to an art gallery and the woman there, Carolyn, sells me on the idea of staying at the Fox County Park Campground, six miles up the road. I am four miles along when Carolyn pulls up beside me. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Cedar River, Michigan
On the lawn by the BP station in Cedar River, Michigan (note rectangular poo) It was a bit of aslog to get to Cedar River and the gas station with diet Coke and a stale tuna sandwich and this WIFI. It is hot, hot. This morning I was sweating by 7:30. The road, Route 35, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Winner of Best Float Award It is so great to be in a place like Oshkosh for the fourth of July. It is full of all the Norman Rockwell things that are good about America. Oshkosh has been for me a place of myth and importance for a long time, for two big reasons. First, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bill Turner (that’s Orange to you)
BIll Turner, wild rice is a grain, not a rice
Posted inNews + Opinion
Patricia Elaine Griffin Ruptash
The barns are twice as long as this June 18 Day 4919.02 miles (30.61 kms)Menahga to Route 19, Minnesota I meet two great women. But first, let’s talk turkey. I pass a huge long barn with turkeys crowded in the big screened windows. They aren’t gobbling, exactly—it’s more like barking. There is a great stink. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Menahga, Minnesota
June 16, Day 47 Levi and some of the kids unharness the horses June 16Detroit Lakes to just west of Evergreen, Minnesota22.06 miles (36.5 kms) In the afternoon of a good day a black buggy pulled by one horse approaches. Like me it is on the narrow shoulder of the road; because it travels with […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Hawley Parade
Parade day in Hawley, Minnesota (rodeo tonight). Folks gather on Main Street early, with nylon folding chairs. The kids all have grocery bags: there’s going to be some candy throwing. There are only a very few horses, but politicians, beauty queens and of course, big-ass farm equipment.
