Every September, my inbox fills with the same question from friends who should know better: “Should I finally do Munich?” And every September I give the same answer. If what you actually want is steins, brass bands, pretzels the size of hubcaps, and a crowd that polkas like it means it, you don’t need a … Read more
There is a moment on every good road trip when the plan dissolves and the detour takes over. Mine happened on Highway 13 in eastern Michigan, somewhere north of Bay City, when a billboard the size of a barn announced CHEESE in letters visible from what felt like another county. I was headed toward Lake … Read more
Every October, the same thing happens. Somebody in the family insists on a leaf-peeping drive through New England, and somebody else ends up white-knuckling a rented crossover down the Kancamagus Highway at eleven miles an hour with a bus on the bumper, catching roughly four seconds of actual foliage through the windshield. I have been … Read more
The turn off the highway comes faster than you expect. One minute you’re sandwiched between semi trucks on the corridor down Florida’s east coast, and the next you’re rolling through White City, just inland of Fort Pierce, where the roadside turns green and heavy and the air picks up something faintly sweet. Follow it far … Read more
There is a moment, somewhere around 9:25 on the last Friday of September, when the crowd stops being a crowd. Twenty thousand people who have been drinking coffee and stamping warmth into their boots since dawn suddenly go quiet, all at once, because someone on a ridge three-quarters of a mile away has lifted a … Read more
The first real cold front of September rolled through on a Tuesday night, and by Wednesday morning the goldenrod field behind the farm stand looked like someone had shaken out a quilt full of embers. Monarchs — dozens of them, then hundreds — dropping out of the trees as the sun climbed, spiraling up on … Read more
Every cross-country driver eventually has to deal with St. Louis. You can skirt it on the outer ring, sure, but if your route puts you anywhere near the middle of the country, odds are you’ll thread the needle where the Mississippi bends west and the Gateway Arch rises out of the riverfront like a silver … Read more
There is a stretch of the Sierra Nevada where the calendar stops mattering and elevation starts running the show. Every September, while New England is still arguing about whether October will behave, the aspens on the eastern slope of the Sierra turn gold in a wave that starts above nine thousand feet and works its … Read more
The first time I crested the hill into the Wallowa Valley, my photographer grabbed my arm before I’d even stopped the truck. Below us: a ribbon of river, a lake the color of glacial milk, and a wall of nine-thousand-foot peaks catching the last of the light. We had driven six hours from Portland and … Read more
Some numbers refuse to compute until you’re standing in front of them. Nine million gallons of water an hour is one of those numbers. That’s how much pours out of Mammoth Spring, the second-largest spring in the Ozarks, every sixty minutes — enough to fill the Spring River, stock it with impatient rainbow trout, keep … Read more