In Hillbilly Queer, J.R. Jamison joins his dad on a road trip to Missouri for a high school reunion. J.R.’s dad is a conservative who voted for Trump in 2016; J.R. is gay, married, and out. In this Statesider conversation, Pam Mandel and J.R. talk about navigating that divide, what it’s like to be an outsider in places like Missouri and Indiana, and the hard work of finding common ground between family members.

First things first. I have been to Indiana and Missouri. I found them…difficult. 

I know people have mixed thoughts about my book. That’s part of creating art, right? Some people hate it. Some people love it. Some people are somewhere in between. 

So it’s absolutely clear: Fuck Trump, I don’t like Donald Trump at all. But I love my dad. For me, it was more of a journey of understanding my father and where he came from (which is Missouri) and understanding his motivations.

I believe the best conversations around understanding or trying to find a common ground, if that’s even possible, is with your family. You have to know it’s a safe space for you to have those conversations. I had a safe space to explore my questions, through the lens of my father and going back to his hometown with him. 

Missouri and Indiana. Both are problematic. Indiana is home; I was born and raised here. I always thought I would leave. I had the opportunity to leave. I’ve traveled, spent time living in China in the early 2000s, but Indiana has always brought me back. The politics here are messy. The politics of Missouri are messy. But I feel if I were to leave that would be exactly what some people want. I can do more by staying here. I don’t want to use the word “convincing,” but having people in these places who know me…they experience my life as a normal everyday person. It’s through those interactions that I can see people changing their viewpoints. 

[LGBTQIA people] are normal people like everyone else, right? We want to find a loving partner, a career, to enjoy life. If I were to leave, who would miss out on understanding this? How could politics ever change? 

It’s not for everyone to stay, but I feel like my work is to be where I am.

You’ve embraced the difficulties of Indiana and Missouri. When I go to a place like that as a tourist, I am a Left Coast Jewish girl from a sealed blue bubble. And I am confronted with attitudes that feel…alienating. You write about seeing Trump signs everywhere. I noticed this a lot when I was in Missouri, plus the “Jesus fish” everywhere. They’re on the hardware store and the bakery and I was like, do I need to be a Christian to buy a Danish?

You embrace the obstacles as agents of change. I’m curious about your thoughts on how an outsider should interact when they bump up against these things. 

I’m familiar with that and the unwelcomeness of that, especially because Indiana is pretty Christian-centric. Mike Pence was our Governor, became Vice President, and he is an absolute nightmare. A state like Indiana struggles with attracting businesses and attracting people to come here for tourism dollars. It does relate to our politics and our culture.

But the state of Indiana is more purple than people imagine. As someone who grew up here. I’ve had to navigate these conversations my entire life. I’m used to literally being stuck in the middle, right? The middle of the country and the middle of policy, right? Most people are somewhere in the middle. Most Hoosiers (which is what we call ourselves here in Indiana) are open to understanding and learning. But when they do present themselves you do find they lead with conservative and Christian.

To be clear, I found everybody very hospitable. And I remember talking to one woman who, after I told her where I was from, said, “I want you to know, we’re not all like you think we are.” That interaction stuck with me, She was making assumptions about what I thought about her as a resident of Indiana. She wasn’t entirely wrong. 

Folks going from coast to coast fly over us, and we think people view us as these hicks who live out in the middle of nowhere. Who are uncultured and have no interaction with the outside world. That’s not true. It is the stigma that we carry around with us because of where we’re from. I find myself saying that to my colleagues in other parts of the country. “I’m in Indiana but it’s not as bad as you would think. I’m not like other people that you may know from Indiana.” 

There’s a lot of apologizing; that’s part of Midwest culture. Midwest nice, where we can’t ever directly say something bad about anyone. 

Bless your heart. Right? 

We apologize for things that we don’t necessarily need to apologize for. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. When people think about this part of the country, they view us as a very red state, as redneck and backward, not a place you would want to visit. Some places are like that, but not everywhere. I think that this part of the country is misunderstood. 

Your book felt like a reconciliation tour, but you also carried around negative stereotypes. You did not look away. You were more, “Yeah. People are like that and it’s complicated.”

Growing up gay I was bullied terribly. Those past hurts never leave. They’re always there to remind us, to bring you back to those moments when you are terrorized as a child. I always equated that with geography. I write about in the book that I knew I was gay at a very early age, but geography and politics didn’t allow me to admit that. I had a deep fear of what would happen if I were the true me. Even though all the kids knew, you know, they picked on me, they knew I was gay. 

Coming out is a powerful statement, it’s not allowing anyone else to own your story. You’re telling people, this is who I am. So laugh at me if you will but this is my life and the joke’s on you. 

Over time, people (in my life) have changed perspectives but there’s still that kid in the back of my head. As I went on this trip and navigated old conversations, I was concerned about my safety. I was concerned about what people think about me, I made assumptions about what people believed, and sometimes I was right. 

But oftentimes, I was wrong. I wanted to unpack that, to not shy away from what I think about people or assumptions that I made. But I also wanted to show that nuance;  our lives are lived in the gray. It’s not so black and white or red and blue, even though, you know, Trump and politics have a thread throughout the book. It was about the human condition and understanding that we all are stories and mixed-up lives.

I was navigating Indiana and Missouri but also understanding what and who made me. Who I am and why I look at the world the way I do.

A few years back I took a trip to the Mississippi Delta and knocked around by myself for 10 days. I had the most awesome time. Some of the best travel I’ve done in years. I cannot shut up about the Mississippi Delta and how everybody has to go. But this friend of mine who is trans responded, “That sounds great. Would I be safe?” I don’t know the answer. 

Yeah. Same here in Indiana. We’re not as red as you imagine. If you look at us on the surface, sure, we’re very conservative. Here in Muncie, there’s a trans woman who is very out-and-proud in our community. A well-known figure, people rally around her. At the same time, if she were to travel 20 minutes away to a smaller community, she could be killed. I don’t know if that’s specific to Indiana or to the Mississippi Delta. I think that’s the whole country.

Look at California. People always think California is like this liberal oasis, but if I’m traveling east out of L.A. it’s pretty conservative. I think that story of safety is an issue across the country. 

We can look at Indiana as a place that’s really red, but the truth is that’s all over the country. Safety depends on who you are and how you identify. If you can pass or not pass. It sucks. 

And I don’t even know that that’s a US issue. I think that’s global, right? I mean, there are parts of the world where you can be executed for being who you are. That may not be the case in the US. In the US, it’s more of a slow burn that we do to our people and that’s so damaging in the long run. 

I’m hoping somebody in the rural part of the country can pick up my book and see themselves reflected in my story. I want to give them hope they can have a happy life where they are. That there may be possibilities to create conversations and connections. I worry about rural kids a lot. 

I want to write stories about rural culture and the intersection with weirdness because I feel like that is often overlooked. There’s not enough from those of us who are queer and living in really red parts of the country. I hope some kid out there can pick up my story and read it and it gives them hope to keep living for another day. 

That’s a beautiful sentiment certainly. And also — you’ve probably heard this — I found you very forgiving. I don’t feel particularly forgiving. You seem willing to advance a courtesy toward people who are not coming from the same place of good intent. 

I would not give those people a pass. It does get complicated. It’s again, it’s living in the gray. 

I’m not a left or right coaster because I’m stuck in the middle of the country, but I would consider myself fairly liberal. I was not keeping my eye on the rise of the Trump presidency. I was so hopeful about Obama, his message. Gay marriage became legal and then it was like we were hit with a ton of bricks, right?

Oh yeah, we did not believe that this could happen. We were so naive.  

When I look at people like those who marched in Charlottesville, and people who are into the whole QAnon conspiracy…that’s a whole different realm. But I look at people like my dad who I know do not buy into that. Somehow he’d bought into this whole Trump idea of bringing back jobs and strengthening the economy, but not into the other stuff. So I think, “What can I do to sit down to better understand you and try to build a bridge between the two of us, because otherwise, will I lose you forever to these people who are ready and willing to recruit you into conspiracy messaging?”

I was terrified to put the book out. I did not want people to think I was sympathizing with Trump, with racists. I was hoping to show that people were buying into the conspiracies that could be pulled back. I was willing to extend myself to bring my dad to common ground.

You have this personal relationship with your father and you both care for each other deeply. I can see the willingness to look at your differences and move past that. You have this deep personal connection driving you to breach this divide. You’re attempting to heal this damage and look past it. But what would you say to people like me who aren’t coming from that?  

When I’m traveling alone, there is that fear that exists. Am I going to be killed? Am I going to be beaten? What will be the outcome for showing up as myself? 

I had the privilege of traveling with my father. There are times where I travel the country by myself and I’m careful about how I present myself. Do I ever hide who I am? No. People may make assumptions based on their interactions with me, but I definitely would recognize that I also have more privilege than our trans brothers and sisters or people of color, right? 

I’m talking my way around not having a direct answer because you’re absolutely right.

How are you post-election? Are you feeling any more optimistic? Given your location, given your experience with your dad, how are you feeling about where we’re heading as a country? 

I’m feeling optimistic. My dad was pro-Trump until the pandemic. He voted for Biden. He says, “I think he’s doing a good job, but I also still love Trump.” 

The conversations have continued with my father beyond the trip in the book. We have common ground on certain issues. There are things that we will never see eye-to-eye on, but when I look at my family, there’s hope.

Cake or pie and where?

That is a hard, hard choice. Honestly, though, I’m a cinnamon roll person. Give me that sweet, flaky, buttery deliciousness any day of the week…but, please, no icing. And the best cinnamon roll this side of the Mississippi is served up hot and fresh at Queer Chocolatier in Muncie, Indiana.  

J.R. JAMISON is the author of Hillbilly Queer: A Memoir and a founder of The Facing Project, a national organization that creates a more understanding and empathetic world through stories that inspire action. He also co-hosts The Facing Project Radio Show on NPR. His work has been featured in The Guardian, Harlem World Magazine, The Huffington Post, and in numerous literary journals. He lives in Indiana with his husband, Cory, and their dog, J.J.

The post Red State Road Trip appeared first on The Statesider.

In this Issue of the Statesider
A national pie emergency, a peek inside American restaurants, L.A. pigeon fanciers, a reconciliation road trip, the town that shouldn’t (and possibly doesn’t) exist, Zoom migration, Appalachian change, and bottomless waffles. Plus an opportunity to join us for a live Statesider Brunch.

Red State Road Trip

J.R. Jamison’s memoir, Hillbilly Queer, tells the story of how a kid who grew up gay in Indiana navigates his relationship with his Trump-loving dad. The Statesider’s Pam Mandel talked with J.R. about his book, visiting red states when you’re a blue state liberal snowflake, and why it’s worth staying put in a place where you’re an outsider. Read the Statesider interview with J.R. Jamison

Indiana is home; I was born and raised here. I always thought I would leave. I had the opportunity to leave. I’ve traveled, spent time living in China in the early 2000s, but Indiana has always brought me back.

Stories Across the USA

Pull Over, Pa! A photographer goes on a mission to capture the USA’s greatest rest stops before they fade away. Ryann Ford, Outside

The Way Pigeons Roll: The fascinating and surprising story of men from South Central L.A. and their multigenerational fascination with Birmingham Roller Pigeons. Shanna B. Tiayon, Pipe Wrench

Imaginary Destinations: Welcome to Agloe, the little town in New York State that never existed…until it did. Mike Sowden, Everything is Amazing

Native Routes: Minnesota’s first people primarily used waterways to get around, but sometimes, land was the only way. Did some of those portage routes lay the foundation for today’s well-traveled roads? Tim Harlow, Curious Minnesota

PIE EMERGENCY: Why have so many Americans forgotten how to make pie? You call that crust? BAKE UP, SHEEPLE. Megan McArdle, Washington Post

I want to convince you that American pie is special, because it is. American pie is great, in part, because of its rich, unlikely history. But American pie is also in dire straits, because American cooks have mostly forgotten how to make the most important part.

Duck Season: Last year, artists in the annual duck stamp competition were required to include duck hunting imagery. What better way to celebrate the majestic duck than with images of impending duck murder? A rule change is in the works. Andy McGlashen, Audubon
While we’re at it, you should totally revisit this story about the duck stamp competition.

Legal Weed Gets Fancy: Mom-and-pop weed shops (that’s a thing?) are finding Maine’s policies for cannabis retailers put them at a disadvantage. Mona Zhang, Politico

They Said No: Artist Bernice Akamine made kalo leaves out of paper bearing the signatures of the thousands of native Hawaiians who objected to the annexation. It’s quite a thing. Karen Valentine, Ke Ola

Shut Up and Give Us the Money: Hold on a sec. The US Government funded a series of US travel guides? They weren’t all fine works of travel literature, but count us on board for a full revival of this program. We have thoughts. Scott Borchert, The Atlantic
This article is an excerpt from Borchert’s new book, Republic of Detours, a history or the Federal Writers’ Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration founded in 1935 to employ jobless writers and encourage Americans to rediscover their country.

The Mountain Traditions Project: What is changing? What remains the same? How are you adapting to the times? Photographer and journalist Michael O. Snyder returned to the mountains of his Appalachian childhood to track how the region is changing and evolving — and *man* these photos are something. Michael O. Snyder, Bitter Southerner

Zoomtown Blues: If you no longer have to live where you work, why not move to where you play? For some remote workers, the pandemic was a chance to try on a new place. In Northern California, everyone seemed to settle on the same place: Lake Tahoe. Rachel Levin, Outside

Are We Allowed to Talk About Mexico? Just south of the border, one Mexican town that helped enslaved Americans escape has been celebrating Juneteenth for 150 years. Taryn White, National Geographic

Restaurant Rebound

15 Hours at Waffle House: The guy who had to hang out in a Waffle House for 15 hours lives to tell the tale. We think we’d have had a better time. Lee Sanderlin, Mississippi Clarion Ledger

I’m going to do my fair share of moaning here. Mainly about how cold it was in the Waffle House, how cold waffles feel like you’re chewing on wet cement, how badly my gastrointestinal tract was screaming to me for help.

Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite Brat Pack actor turned travel writer Andrew McCarthy can’t stop eating at Waffle House.
Also, this Waffle House needlepoint canvas on Etsy has 5 stars and over 450 reviews, so maybe get one?

A Life in Dishes: Life lessons from a dishwasher who worked in the kitchen of a James Beard Award-winning restaurant for nearly 40 years. Javier Cabral, Pop-Up Magazine

North Carolina Drag Brunch: It’s drag! It’s brunch! It’s somewhat controversial if you’re in rural Kinston, N.C.! Photographer Madeline Gray captured the monthly event, and the performers trying to make the town more inclusive. Madeline Gray, WUNC

PNW Potatoes: “You get them from a supermarket or mini-mart, ideally one inside a gas station, out of a foggy cellophane bag. Or in truck stops and roadhouses, maybe a shack on a rural highway with a sign that has the word “broasted” on it. That’s where your jojos are.” It’s where we wish we were, too. Meg van Huygen, The Stranger

Have Brunch With Us

We have fun editorial meetings at The Statesider. Someone will mention tumbleweeds or famous canned cheese and an hour later we wonder if we should start the meeting. Turns out that the space between tumbleweeds and famous canned cheese is where the magic happens. We’re going to bring our Americana-tinged nerdy-tangent-chasing ramblings to a live brunch on Twitter Spaces, hosted by our friend and travel photographer Kirsten Alana. All you need is a Twitter account, a cup of your favorite whatever, and an hour to waste on Sunday, August 1st at 9:30 am Pacific. Watch this space — we’ll have a link soon!

We have some great original stories lined up for future issues. In the meantime, you can find us on Twitter or waiting in line at Turkey Leg Hut.

The post Rest Stops, Red States & Restaurants appeared first on The Statesider.

Roycroft, the utopian community near Buffalo, New York, was a major inspiration for the Arts and Crafts movement; its distinctive design aesthetic is imitated to this day. As Melanie Haiken found, it may have inspired something altogether different: Scientology. Roycroft, like all utopias, eventually faded away — but it holds some important lessons for all of us.

“Life without Industry is Guilt. Industry without Art is Brutality.” The forbidding message, carved into a pair of imposing oak doors, offers the first inkling that Roycroft, an artisan community in East Aurora, New York, might have been more than the back-to-basics utopia it appears. 

Picture the more than 500 Roycrofters who lived here during the community’s heyday sitting down to a collective meal in the rustic-beamed dining room, a row of heavy oak plaques swinging from chains above their heads. The mottos are cryptic: “Reciprocity. Mutuality. Moderation.” Some, like “Be Yourself,” feel like an eerie premonition of the sentiments so annoyingly ubiquitous during my 1970s California childhood, when the self-actualization movement, as it was un-ironically known, was in full swing. And then there’s my favorite, as enigmatic as it gets: “It Doesn’t Matter.”

Clearly, there was more going on here than craftsmanship, though Roycroft’s role as a preeminent center of Arts & Crafts design and architecture is the lure for the majority of visitors who make the 30-minute drive from nearby Buffalo. Founded in 1895 by followers of the John Ruskin and William Morris-inspired movement and mostly abandoned in the 1930s, Roycroft today has become something of a pilgrimage for fans of that era’s heavy wooden furniture, hammered copperware, and Medieval-inspired letterpress printing. 

Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986 after being abandoned and all but lost, the Roycroft Campus has undergone painstaking restoration, with the print shop, furniture shop, copper shop, and chapel now open to visitors, as well as the Roycroft Inn and Restaurant. Governed by their overarching motto—Head-Heart-Hand—and stamping many of their works with a Medieval-looking symbol hearkening back to the craft guilds of the middle ages, Roycrofters put craft and a simpler way of life back on the American radar, pushing against the industrial revolution–fueled tide towards convenience and machine-made goods.

Life without Industry is Guilt.
Industry without Art is Brutality.

I’m far less interested in the mortise-and-tenon joinery of Mission-style chairs and library tables than I am in its founder, Elbert Hubbard, a former salesman for Buffalo’s Larkin Soap Company, a man whose creative hucksterism paid off in financial success, the proceeds of which funded the founding of Roycroft. Said riches also underwrote Roycroft’s print shop, which published Hubbard’s paradoxical treatises propounding everything from enlightened labor and political reforms to worship of wealth and financial success. Happy to pillory almost any aspect of society, Hubbard was an acid-tongued satirist whose views and personal life were equally contradictory. He was a dandy who favored Stetson hats and oversized velvet bow ties but expounded on the virtues of austerity and hard work. He was a moralist who maintained two families within miles of each other, fathering daughters by his first and eventual second wife just months apart.  

Wandering the dimly lit rooms, with their church-like arched mullioned windows, I’m mesmerized by the Roycroft leader’s pithy pronouncements, many of which read like dispatches from the world of those busy manifesting self-actualization in all its forms. “Use Your Friends By Being of Use to Them,” reads a slogan over one window; “Men Are Great Only as They Are Kind,” reads another. 

Hubbard’s philosophy, which morphed over time from anarchy and an idealistic worker-led socialism to impassioned championship of free enterprise, established him firmly in the long chain of business and personal self-help messiahs from Spiritualism’s Madame Blavatsky to positive thinking pusher Norman Vincent Peale to Rhonda Byrne, whose The Secret borrowed from them all. A quick perusal of The Notebook of Elbert Hubbard, a posthumous compilation of his writings, wields gems like “Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts.” Hubbard’s best-known essay, Message to Garcia, a slightly disturbing ode to perseverance and obedience, remains on the reading lists of many business schools and military training programs today.

Even Roycroft’s signature font — designed, I’m told, by early resident Dard Hunter — looks strangely familiar until I realize it’s almost identical to that used by modern-day letterpress artist David Lance Goines in his iconic posters for Chez Panisse, Peet’s Coffee, and countless other California restaurants, businesses and institutions.

If all of these threads of interconnection weren’t enough to get my neck prickling, there’s one more — the name Hubbard, which links Roycroft’s founder with another self-proclaimed utopian leader, L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. Can it be a coincidence, I wonder, that the leader of what is arguably America’s most prominent and successful cult has the same name as the man who coined sayings like, “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one?”

It’s no coincidence; whether the man born Lafayette Ronald Hubbard shortened his name to L. Ron to sound more like Elbert or not, he did claim descendancy of a type, with a story of being a nephew through adoption — though researchers attempting to document the connection haven’t been able to substantiate the story. What is known is that the connection was important enough to the later Hubbard that he dedicated the 9th printing of his book Dianetics to his supposed namesake. And that at various times he had groups of followers read and distribute A Message to Garcia — perhaps unsurprising given the essay’s emphasis on subjugating the individual to the will of the greater group.

If all of this gives me pause, it’s also strangely impressive. In his 59 years, Hubbard made Roycroft a self-sustaining enterprise, with its own bank, blacksmith shop, and farms. He wrote a 9-volume biographical series detailing the lives and thoughts of those he considered influential thinkers and artists. In later years he became a supporter of the suffragist movement, a cause espoused by his second wife, Alice Moore. In addition to editing two magazines, he became a sought-after lecturer and even a correspondent for the Hearst newspapers. It was in that role that Hubbard and his wife set sail for Europe on their last voyage — they died in the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915. 

As I take a final walk around the grounds, admiring the hand-set stone walls and unrestored buildings not yet open to visitors, I try to understand why I’ve felt so unnerved by Roycroft’s exhortations to hard work and communal action — values I do, after all, believe in and do my best to abide by.  Perhaps it’s the sense that movements like this come and go, some disappearing with little trace, others sending out tendrils to take root anywhere they find fertile soil. And the realization that a legacy can stretch far beyond the original intent, its ideals inspiring generations of artists and designers while fueling the aspirations of leaders far less magnanimous than the original model. 

It occurs to me that such ironies would please Hubbard, who might have written his own epitaph in one of his most popular sayings, often illustrated by a heavily burdened skeleton: “Do Not Take Life Too Seriously — You Will Never Get Out of it Alive.” 

But there’s another epitaph, too, the final line on a bronze plaque placed outside the Roycroft chapel a year after the Hubbards’ deaths at sea: “They lived and died fearlessly.” This, I think, is the meaning I’ll take away from this infuriatingly inconsistent man and his clan who set themselves apart to live and work differently, changing the rules as they went along. It seems a fitting one for these times when one global problem seems to pile on top of another: fearlessness may be the value we most need to reclaim.

The post Life Lessons from a Lost Utopia appeared first on The Statesider.

In this Issue of the Statesider
Arts and crafts utopia, roadside attractions, in praise of lesser-known parks, seeking California BBQ, hard history we need to remember, weird history that’s totally optional, Scooby-Doo and acid-shooting monsters.
Plus, join us for a live Statesider Brunch!

Life Lessons from a Lost Utopia

Utopian communities generally fail, often quite spectacularly. As Melanie Haiken found when she visited, Roycroft, near Buffalo, New York, was abandoned, but it didn’t exactly fail — in fact its effects on design have lasted to this day. Oh, and it just might have inspired Scientology. Read this Statesider Original Story

Stories Across the USA

Golden State BBQ: California BBQ, like most everything in the state, is many things all at once: spiced by influxes of immigrants, experimental and with a history all its own. Tejal Rao, New York Times

Editor’s note: I haven’t lived in California for twenty years, but I still have fond memories of making the drive to Gilroy to a tiny BBQ shack surrounded by garlic fields. The aroma there was a mix of wood fire, spices, and the ever-present scent of green garlic. –PM

Other editor’s note: I have lived in California for nearly all of my life, and just recently realized that tri-tip bbq isn’t something that exists most other places. Also, you should serve it with pinquitos and pico de gallo, because why would you not? –AM

Big Bend Monsters: Rains bring wildflowers to the prairie, but they also bring — and we need you to read this carefully — acid-shooting land lobsters. Nope. Hard pass. Abigail Rosenthal, MRT

Another Roadside Attraction: We think it’s always worth taking the detour; this roundup of roadside wonders shows you why. I mean … the world’s largest collection of the world’s largest objects? We’ll drive. Jennifer Nalewicki, Smithsonian

Another Another Roadside Attraction: We’re suckers for this kind of thing, obviously. Here’s more, this time in Wisconsin, including rhinestone cottages and rusty spaceships. Kristine Hansen, National Geographic

Cultural Burn: A fascinating story on the “cultural burns” of planned fires led by Indigenous communities. “This spiritual practice of ‘low and slow’ burning is done to tend the land, such as in other planned burns, but is also intended for cultural purposes—for instance, to encourage the growth of basketry materials, or to move elk and other animals integral to some Native traditions.” Michelle Bigley, Hidden Compass

A Magical Realm of Crabs and Chickens: A lovely ode to the wonders of the Delmarva Peninsula, the big dangly bit of the mid-Atlantic coast that includes Delaware. Tim Neville, Outside

North Carolina Mithai: Every city in America has Indian food these days, but what about desserts? The Gravy podcast from the Southern Foodways Alliance goes in search of the sweeter side of Indian cuisine. Kayla Stewart, Gravy

Statesider Hero of the Month: This Portland Maine bartender and every word that comes out of his mouth. Chris Busby, Mainer

The Untold History Department

Dog is My Copilot: “The auto brand Jeep is named after a teleporting, interdimensional dog.” Steve Bryant, Why is This Interesting?

Misremember the Alamo: What’s included when we learn Texas History? What’s left out? Sarah Enelow-Snyder, Bitter Southerner

A Place of Terror: A present-day exploration of the place where a group of men lynched Emmett Till, and the local legacy of that horrific act. “Our eyes adjusted to the darkness of the barn where Emmett Till was tortured … Christmas decorations leaned against one wall.” Wright Thompson, The Atlantic

Iowa Airwaves and the Original Social Media: “There were so many lonely women on the farms in Iowa. Every day the men would leave and the wives would be left in their homes with their cooking and cleaning and gardening and children, and nothing but the radio for company.” Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me

Ruh-Roh, It’s the American Uncanny: Unpacking Scooby-Doo’s cultural legacy of … documenting vernacular architecture around the USA in the 1970s?? Feargus O’Sullivan, Bloomberg

Statesider Brunch: Join Us!

Sunday, August 1 at 12:30 Eastern, 9:30 Pacific. If you’re in Australian Central Standard Time, we’ll let you figure that one out yourself. All you need is a Twitter account to join. Click here to add a reminder and meet us for brunch.

Go Small or Go Home

Your Seattle editor is just back from a few days with family in Washington’s Clallam County on the Olympic Peninsula. We stayed in a spare but spectacularly located cottage on Sequim Bay. We listened to seals converse, crunched on empty oyster shells at low tide, and met the gumboot chiton. Best part of the trip? The county parks. We went beach combing on an empty stretch of shore, and the next day, tide-pooling on the rocky cliffs at Salt Creek Recreation Area. Sure, sure, the National Parks are America’s best idea and all that. You know what’s also amazing? State parks. County parks. They are cheaper, often less crowded than the big guys, and just as compelling. Go visit yours. Right now. Go on, git. Send us a postcard, why doncha? –PM

We’ll see you at the virtual Statesider Brunch, right? Don’t make us eat all the scones.

The post Paradise Lost & Found appeared first on The Statesider.

On one bank of the river: a New Orleans neighborhood long accustomed to visitors. On the other bank: a zoo of an unusual sort, decidedly not accustomed to visitors. April Blevins Pejic went to explore this unique experiment in wild animal conservation and found herself thinking of her own New Orleans neighborhood, and what changes when you find yourself under the gaze of outsiders.

Just across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter in New Orleans lies a tract of land with the rather generic name Audubon Wilderness Park. A friend and I went out there in spring to look for migratory birds passing through the area, and were shocked when we arrived. The entrance didn’t have the inviting brick sign surrounded by well-tended flowers like Audubon Park in Uptown, but instead had a massive iron gate blocking the road with a speaker box to buzz the guard posted at a small office inside. We weren’t entirely sure we were in the right place as it looked more like a prison entrance than a park. 

The guard explained that only a small area of the property is open to the public but we could walk around that area if we followed all the rules. He took our name, address, and license information, and cautioned us to follow the main gravel road to a specific area, and not to make any left turns for any reason. With those warnings and a list of rules that included securing the lock I would find at the entrance to the part of the property open to the public, my friend Melissa and I set off down the long gravel road. Dense forest and old growth trees grew all around us. It was lush and green and would have been beautiful, except the road was lined with tall fences topped with razor wire.

We passed the two roads off to the left the guard warned us about. Each was blocked by a heavy iron gate at least twelve feet tall. I wondered what could possibly necessitate such a large gate, but I shrugged it off when a barred owl flew low across the road in front of us. I was so excited about following the owl that I ignored any discomfort I felt about all the fences and razor wire and what might be behind them. 

We found the area he described as safe marked by a sign on a short chain-link fence. 

A gated area within a gated area should have concerned me more than it did, but I was excited about migration season and a new birding hotspot and the barred owl I’d just seen on the way in. 

Melissa and I doused ourselves in bug spray and took off down the path through the dense woods. We saw a hermit thrush and a hooded warbler, but a rising uneasiness grew with every step we took. Aside from the guard at the property entrance, we hadn’t seen any other people at all. Then, I heard a screech so loud and strange that I immediately thought “pterodactyl.” 

“What was that?” Melissa asked. “I’m getting strong ‘Jurassic Park’ vibes out here.”

I was, too. We’d been following the sound of a northern parula and having zero luck spotting it in the high canopy when we heard the unearthly screech again. I also swear I heard a roar. We gave up on the parula and walked quickly back to the car. As we drove back down the gravel road, I saw something move up ahead. When we got within a few feet of it, we realized it was the barred owl. I braked hard. The owl didn’t even flinch. He stayed right where he was in the middle of the road staring at us. We stared at each other for a long moment, Melissa and I watching him watch us, until he finally flew away. It was clear that there was some incredible wildlife here, but it was equally clear that we were on their turf. 

Despite its mythic reputation as a hedonist’s paradise, New Orleans is actually a small town. The city is surrounded by water on three sides and by marsh on the other, so it occupies a limited geographical space, but it’s also small in the way that everybody who lives here knows everybody else, or knows somebody who knows somebody. In fact, the population of New Orleans proper is fewer than 400,000 residents, a stark contrast to the roughly 20 million tourists who visit the city every year. The city may feel much larger than it is to those visiting, but to residents it’s a tight community. 

In true small-town New Orleans fashion, a few days after my trip with Melissa, I met a guy at a crawfish boil who works at Audubon Wilderness Park. When I relayed my experience, he was surprised that we gained entry at all.

“It felt like ‘Jurassic Park’ out there because it is ‘Jurassic Park,’” he said.

He explained that we’d happened upon the Freeport-McMoRan Audubon Species Survival Center. The center is home to the Frozen Zoo, a collection of cryogenically-frozen genetic material from endangered species, and the Alliance Species Survival Center, a joint program between the San Diego Zoo and the Audubon Zoo to promote mating and genetic diversity in endangered populations by giving the animals space to roam and a herd to choose from. It’s essentially a brothel for endangered species. The animals that have been bred at the Species Survival Center include giraffes, okapis, wolves, wildcats, whooping and sandhill cranes, bongos, elands, and yellow-backed duikers. I don’t know which of those animals made the roar that I heard, but the pterodactyl-screeching was likely a crane.

Since Audubon leases the land from the U.S. Coast Guard, and the USCG still has an active communication station on the land, there are government reports detailing the purpose and need for a zoo animal brothel in the driest possible language. One report explains, “The selective pairing of a male and a female of a given species in a traditional zoo enclosure was formerly the accepted method of breeding zoo animals. However, in the long run, zoo personnel learned that matchmaking had its problems and was not overly successful. Often as not, while the pairing looked good from an animal husbandry perspective, one or both animals would show an indifference to the other and the hoped-for romance would never develop. As in natural/wild settings, the use of herds wherein mates, through a selective process, can seek out each other has proven to be a more effective means of breeding for certain species.” 

As annoyed as I get at the tourists who can’t even acknowledge me with a wave, I can’t imagine the rage I would feel if it were my ruined home they were gawking at from the plushy seats of an air-conditioned bus.

Aside from having more options for a mate, I’m sure the animals appreciate having privacy, some time to themselves when they aren’t subjected to the gaze of humans. On a trip with my children to the Audubon Zoo a few years ago, the gorillas made a distinct impression on me. One gorilla sat off by himself, motionless and staring at the crowd. I can’t know what the gorilla was thinking, but it struck me that he seemed dejected. A kid nearby had a drink with a straw that he kept pulling out of the cup. He’d fling droplets of water towards the gorillas while his mother scrolled on her phone. The gorilla watched him too, then shifted his posture. 

“What’s it doing?” my daughter asked. 

I didn’t know. The gorilla watched the little boy fling water and screech. The gorilla held eye-contact with the kid while he defecated. 

“Ugh,” my daughter said. 

The boy stopped flinging water from his straw while the gorilla scooped up a handful of dung and shoved it in his mouth. The little boy made exaggerated gagging noises and yelled in disgust, but the gorilla just kept staring him down and eating his own feces. 

I thought about that gorilla when I read a recent New York Times essay, in which Emma Marris argues that despite zoos’ reputations for education and conservation, it seems morally questionable to keep animals in captivity at all. Marris explains that many zoo animals engage in behaviors that show distress like self-biting or mutilation, exaggerated aggressiveness and infanticide, endlessly repeated movements, and, yes, eating their own feces. Apparently, many zoo animals require mood stabilizers and antidepressants. Marris acknowledges that zoo conservation efforts and breeding programs, like the one at the Species Survival Center, are increasing the population of endangered species, but those species are rarely reintroduced to the wild, and even when they are reintroduced, the wild populations still face the problems of habitat loss that endangered them in the first place. 

Habitat loss and feeling the pressure of a constant outsider gaze is a problem New Orleanians can relate to.

After Hurricane Katrina flooded my home Uptown with five feet of water and I lived through the nightmare of the storm’s aftermath, I knew my heart couldn’t take doing it all over again when the next hurricane hit and flooded the city. So I bought a different house, a bright orange shotgun on the highest ground in the city, the Sliver by the River. It had holes in the roof, knob-and-tube electrical wiring, and plumbing that left the inspector shaking his head and tutting about shoddy workmanship. It was ugly and falling apart, but I didn’t care. I brought it up to code. I put a long table in the front parlor so I can look out the floor-to-ceiling windows to the street while I work. I painted the house a light lavender and the shutters a dark navy. I planted camellias out front and enjoyed the quiet neighborhood. 

That is, I enjoyed it until the tourists arrived.

For the last ten years, every morning at 11:30 am, a Cajun Encounters tour bus stops in front of my home. The driver always waves when she sees me working at the long table by the window, but the passengers never do. They stare slack-jawed as the guide explains the definition of a camelback shotgun (“a shotgun-style building with a second story rising at the rear”) and points to my house. It is a strange feeling to be on display, to have people pay actual money to someone else for the opportunity to peer in on your life. This particular tour begins in the French Quarter and ends in the Ninth Ward so tourists can see the lasting effects of Katrina. As annoyed as I get at the tourists who can’t even acknowledge me with a wave, I can’t imagine the rage I would feel if it were my ruined home they were gawking at from the plushy seats of an air-conditioned bus. 

Habitat loss and fragmentation are threatening biodiversity worldwide. Fragmentation occurs when a habitat gets divided into smaller and more isolated patches, often due to land development or farming. Even though patches of the original habitat remain, fragmentation affects microclimates, pollination, and reduces the abundance of all forms of life within that habitat: plants, insects, birds, and mammals. 

 In a recent study, researchers used high-resolution satellite imagery to analyze the extent to which fragmentation affects the world’s forests. They found that more than 70 percent of forests globally are within one kilometer of a forest edge. This information, coupled with a meta-analysis of long-term studies on fragmentation revealed that “consistently, all aspects of fragmentation — reduced fragment area, increased isolation, and increased edge — had degrading effects on a disparate set of core ecosystem functions.” 

Fragmentation causes genetic bottlenecks and inbreeding by isolating populations. Forest edges create inroads for predatoratory species and hinder plant pollination. Fragmentation can even reduce the nutrient retention of the soil. It’s a lot of bad news for biodiversity and species that are already endangered. Even if we have the ability to increase the populations through breeding from zoo populations or cryogenically frozen embryos, where are they going to live? On display at a zoo?

It used to be that tourists stayed in the French Quarter and didn’t venture outside of that area much. They might ride the streetcar down St. Charles Avenue or to the Garden District for a cemetery tour and dinner at Commander’s Palace, but it was rare to see tourists out en masse in other neighborhoods. The proliferation of short-term rentals flooding the local housing market in the last ten years changed all of that. I can’t tell you how many drunk tourists have had teary break-up arguments while sitting on my stoop, or how many discarded beer bottles I’ve pulled out of the camellias. I am lucky that these mild annoyances are the extent of my troubles. Many local residents are losing their homes.

According to InsideAirbnb, a website that tracks short-term rental data, New Orleans has 6,508 short-term rentals listed, 85 percent of which are whole homes. The city recognized that the short-term rental market was contributing to skyrocketing housing prices and a housing shortage and passed regulations in 2019 to curb the problem. But the complicated and seemingly arbitrary regulations have done little to address the growing problem of resident displacement. In my neighborhood alone, an area that occupies only three-tenths of a square mile, there are 359 short-term rentals listed on Airbnb. 

The housing shortage in the city looks particularly problematic when you consider that the city’s largest industry, tourism and hospitality, consists primarily of low-wage jobs. The residents who clean the hotels, or cook and serve in the restaurants and bars are increasingly unable to afford to live here, which is leading to demographic shifts. In 2005 before Katrina hit, New Orleans was 67 percent Black and 27 percent White. The most recent census data (2020) shows the city is 59 percent Black and 34 percent White. These shifting demographics have created tension within the city. 

These tensions are perfectly encapsulated in the recent viral fame of the videoed confrontation between a native New Orleanian with deep roots in the community and a woman from Arkansas who used her car to block the street for a house party. In the video, the man tells the woman she can’t block the street without a permit, that elderly neighbors are complaining to him they can’t get to their homes. She asks if he wants a taco. He becomes irate at her dismissiveness and yells obscenities. She moons him. The video touched a nerve in the city because residents are increasingly being displaced from neighborhoods their families have lived in for generations by skyrocketing rents and property taxes, all driven by the short-term rental market.

Other people who attended the crawfish boil assured me there was fantastic birding along the trails but cautioned the bunkers were usually full of snakes.

The city has so heavily commodified the “Do Whatcha Wanna” myth of New Orleans that it hardly seems fair to complain that people have believed it. The city’s new ad campaign features actor Wendell Pierce walking around an empty hotel bar. “We’ve missed you,” he says. “We’ve missed doing what we do best, taking care of friends, old and new. Can I get you something to drink?” he asks as he swirls a cocktail toward the camera. The city absolutely depends on the revenue generated by tourism, which in 2019 was $10 billion, a fact made glaringly apparent by the devastation of long-term shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic on the local economy. It is also true that neighborhoods experience cyclical changes of growth and decline. But is it still a neighborhood if it’s functioning as a giant hotel?

Long before the land occupied by the Species Survival Center became Bourbon Street for zoo animals, it was a military installation where ammunition was housed in bunkers during World War II. The bunkers still exist, and are accessible by walking trails along the backside of the Audubon facility in an area called the Woodlands Conservancy. Other people who attended the crawfish boil assured me there was fantastic birding along the trails but cautioned the bunkers were usually full of snakes. Once I knew more, I wanted to see more.

So again, Melissa and I set out across the Mississippi River early one morning to go check out the trails and bunkers. We were prepared for the bugs and snakes. We were not prepared for the wild hogs. 

A huge storm a few days before our trip had made a mess of the trail. We had to climb over downed branches and trees as we side-stepped puddles and deep mud. As we walked, we realized we were probably the first people to use the trail since the storm. We saw all kinds of animal tracks in the mud, but no other footprints save our own, which unsettled me. 

We had only hiked in about a hundred yards from the trailhead when we came across a mulberry tree heavy with fruit. Birds love mulberries, and I hoped to see maybe an indigo bunting or rose-breasted grosbeak up in the branches. Melissa and I stared through our binoculars when we heard grunts and snorts. We froze.

“Oh my god, is that a wild pig?” Melissa asked. We stood still as we looked in the direction the noise came from. We saw brush moving, but couldn’t see the animal in the dense woods. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. 

I still wanted to explore the bunkers. “It’ll be fine,” I said. “It’ll go away. Let’s just wait a minute.”

We stood still and silent. A bird trilled above our heads, but I didn’t dare look up. Melissa and I have encountered all manner of wildlife while birding: raccoons and opossums, deer and armadillos, feral hogs and alligators. I don’t mind coming across alligators sunning themselves, but I do not like feral hogs. Aside from being huge and smart, feral hogs are insanely fast runners, able to swim, and have gored people to death.

 “We should make a pig plan. What have you got on you?” I asked. 

“Binoculars and a phone,” she said. She pulled out her cell phone to google what to do when encountering wild pigs. 

I had a bag of granola and a bottle of bug spray in my pack. “Will pigs eat granola?” I asked. We noticed all the hoof prints around the mulberry tree and decided that pigs who felt territorial about mulberries would probably like granola, too. Melissa grabbed a large stick from the ground at my urging while I got the snacks out in case we needed to throw it as a diversion. 

“This is stupid. We should just leave,” Melissa said. 

I might have agreed with her, except we had encountered wild hogs before. That time, the pig was pretty far away and skedaddled quickly when it saw us. Probably this one would run away, too. We stayed put until we no longer heard grunts and the woods went still. 

“Okay, it’s gone. Let’s keep going,” I said. I took a few tentative steps before I saw the huge pile of fresh dung in the middle of the trail. I pointed it out to Melissa as I stepped around it. We moved slowly and talked so we wouldn’t sneak up on anything. We took a few more cautious steps. “See, this is fine,” I said, though I felt like an interloper in that forest. 

Up ahead, the trail turned into a blind curve. I had only just registered that we should be cautious around it when the woods around us erupted in squeals and grunts. The underbrush to the left, right, and in front of us swayed violently.

“That’s it. I’m out,” Melissa said. I agreed, and we hightailed it back to the car where it took us several minutes to regain a normal blood pressure. 

As we sat there in the car, shaky and out of breath, I decided it just isn’t worth it. Those animals clearly didn’t want us traipsing through their home. As curious as I am about that wild place and as much as I’d like to see a whooping crane, I don’t need to go back out there. Some areas, I think, are best left to the residents.

The post Zoo Orleans appeared first on The Statesider.

In this Issue of the Statesider
We got some news to tell you, oh-oh, about some wild, wild life. Running from 20-40 (okay, maybe it was three, but still) feral hogs in NOLA, botany at 60 mph, popular trash pandas, living inside a photorealist painting, everybody loves garlic noodles, and a message from your wild neighbors.

Zoo Orleans

A cryogenic zoo for endangered species. Bunkers full of poisonous snakes. Feral pigs that want your granola. Pterodactyls (unconfirmed). Just across the river from the French Quarter in New Orleans is a place that is much, much wilder. April Blevins Pejic went to explore this unusual experiment in wild animal conservation and found herself reflecting on her own New Orleans neighborhood, and what changes when boundaries break down. Read this Statesider Original Story

Stories Across the USA

Shrimp, Grits & Language Lessons: After nearly 40 years, Crook’s Corner restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, closed for good. But it wasn’t just a place for mind-bending shrimp and grits for Michael Venutolo-Mantovani, it was where he learned to live — and talk — like a Southerner. Michael Venutolo-Mantovani, Bitter Southerner

“Mike,” she whispered through a chuckle. “You can’t talk like that down here. This isn’t New York. People actually listen to what they hear.”

Swim Fan: An ode to the public pool: America’s wettest melting pot. Gregg Segal, National Geographic

A Minor Miracle: Minor League Baseball in the US is having a moment, and we have… clever branding to thank? I guess we’ll see you at the next Rocket City Trash Pandas game — maybe they’ll be playing the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. Marcus Gilmer, New York Times

United by Noodles: The unlikely story of garlic noodles and how they became a cross-cultural staple in the San Francisco Bay Area. Luke Tsai, KQED

“For us, Black people in California, we get asked, ‘Why are you not making soul food?’ This is soul food for us. It’s different from our grandparents’ generation. You’re going to find garlic noodles; you’re going to find Mexican food.”

Trail Travails: How a rail-to-trail project in rural Oregon became an unlikely symbol — and a target of far-right extremism. Leah Sottile, High Country News

Magically Empty Kingdom: Joy, small crowds, and making corn dog reservations at the newly reopened Disneyland. Barbara Neal Varma, Orange Coast Magazine

What is “Ethnic Food” Anyway? Why do “Ethnic Food” aisles still exist in American grocery stores? Shouldn’t a Mexican cookie sit with all of its cookie friends? Priya Krishna, New York Times

Extreme Botany: Taking a road trip? Interested in wildflowers? Have a budding naturalist in the back seat? Don’t hit the road without this FREE essential tool: “A Field Guide to Roadside Wildflowers At Full Speed.“ Chris Helzer, The Prairie Ecologist

You Say Yokwe, I Say Hello: A scientist travels to the Marshall Islands for a language lesson in what’s changed at the center of the earth’s climate engine. Emma Reed, Terrain

Into the Wild

How to Be a Lightweight: On a trip through Utah’s Buckskin Gulch, Ali Selim learns the secrets of ultralight backpackers and how to know what you don’t need to carry. Ali Selim, Outside

Texas Volcanoes: What do you mean Texas doesn’t have volcanoes? Tell that to these 10 sleeping beauties. Amy Weaver Dorning, Texas Monthly

Freedom in the Outdoors: Tope Folarin spent a lifetime building his vision of a perfect indoor life, but a childhood memory of the Wasacth Mountains in Utah — and a pandemic year — made him rethink his relationship to the great outdoors. Tope Folarin, High Country News

A Mountain Range By Any Other Name: Wait, is it “the Sierras” or “the Sierra”? As Freda Moon found out, the difference isn’t trivial to some folks, and they were happy to tell her just how wrong she was when she added an “s.” What’s the big deal? She decided to ask. Freda Moon, SF Gate

“Do tourists expect to be ‘liked’ or even welcomed when they behave like slovenly spoiled brats and self entitled sociopaths? We laugh at you. We make fun of you.”

So, This is the Outdoors: The pandemic spurred many people to rediscover the outdoors. And now that indoor attractions are starting to come back, many are sticking with their new outdoor hobbies. Nick Hyrtek, Sioux City Journal

…and the Wild into Cities

Hello, My Deer: A letter from your friendly neighborhood deer. John Yunker, High Country News

What is an Urban Pigeon? Checking in on Bert’s favorite bird. Rosemary Mosco, Pipe Wrench

Distance, Schmistance

We’re always saying that distance is overrated in travel, and that amazing experiences can be found just as easily close to home as anywhere around the world. The Statesider’s Andy Murdock took this to the extreme, and — much to his surprise — stumbled upon an unusual travel experience on the same block he lives on. How Andy found himself inside a photorealistic painting — and you can too. Read this story on SF Gate

Thanks to everyone who joined us for Twitter brunch recently — we had a blast! We’ve been planning an *actual* live reading event, but until that becomes possible/a good idea catch up on Statesider original stories here.

The post Wild Wild Life appeared first on The Statesider.

Nick Hilden pitched us a story on the growing wildfire threat in the West and how it’s disrupting travel plans, straining local business who depend on summer tourism, and upending long-held family traditions. Guess what happened next.

My plans for this story were disrupted by wildfires, of course.

There was a time when wildfires were considered a sporadic nuisance, but now the residents of the Methow Valley expect and fear their coming each summer, and know that the devastating imposition of fire will only continue to grow. I had interviews arranged with several local community members, but they all had to cancel. Right now, they’re too busy evacuating their horses, packing valuables and family heirlooms, and preparing themselves for the possibility — and, increasingly, a certainty — that they will lose everything.

The Methow Valley sits on the starboard shoulder of the Cascade Mountains in Washington, marking the place where — in the summer — the lush greens typically associated with the state give way to the dry browns of the high desert. The community is made up of three towns that sit along Highway 20: Mazama, Winthrop, and Twisp. Of this triad Winthrop is the most popular, known for its Old Western facades and wooden sidewalks and general bustle of tourism.

I’ve been visiting Winthrop my whole life. My family has been camping at a meadow near Falls Creek 11 miles north of town along the Chewuck River for nearly half a century, beginning a decade before I was born. When I was a young man, I spent summers living in a tent in the meadow and bartending in town. My father’s ashes are scattered there, and now the latest iteration of our family has begun making memories there.

There’s a trail that runs up Falls Creek past several tiers of waterfall, the second of which has been a favorite swimming hole among my cousins and I ever since we were very young. When I used to spend summers in the meadow, I would hike up to this pool to shower in the falls and bathe in its icy glacial runoff. We know it so well that any change is obvious. Recently we saw that a tree had settled across its span some thirty feet above its surface, and we discussed with my nephew how someday when it and he had grown a bit he could attach a rope-swing to it. In that moment, it wasn’t hard to imagine his children playing on that theoretical swing, and maybe even their children after that. 

This is our place, our legacy, and we are fiercely protective of it. But a threat looms.

The signs that they — the meadow, Winthrop, and the Methow in general — were in danger crept in slowly. When I was a boy, the burn ban never went into effect until August, if at all. But each year was hotter than the last — each summer drier — and by the turn of the millennium it was no longer quite the same experience. Today, campfires are virtually a thing of the past. If you hope to roast s’mores or gather around a campfire’s warming glow, you’d better go to the Methow before the second half of June.

My family’s most recent visit — which inaugurated a longer trip I would be taking down the coast — was in early July this year, already several weeks into the burn ban. This time there were about a dozen of us, small numbers by our family standards. My brother couldn’t make it. He was off fighting wildfires somewhere in Southern California, a job that began many years ago as a part-time volunteer gig but was by now a beyond-full time role that demanded his attention all summer long.  

“Cousin,” I said, pressing the gas to the floor, “we might have just made a terrible mistake.”

Our family filled the days with hiking and swimming in waterfalls and relaxing by the river. Occasionally we went to town for essential supplies like ice cream from Sheri’s Sweet Shop or drinks at Three Fingered Jack’s Saloon. On one such visit, we found that the community park had been taken over by fire trucks with their ladders aloft and decorated with streamers — a memorial for a firefighter who had died. I couldn’t help but wonder after my brother, and selfishly wish that he was there with us drinking by the river rather than risking his life amidst the flames. 

After a week our stay came to an end. I’d driven to the valley with my cousin Spencer, and we were the first to leave.

When we emerged onto Highway 20, we saw a great billow of dark smoke coming from somewhere up the road. While getting gas in Mazama, I was told by a visibly nervous cashier that the fire was just up the hill at Cedar Creek and that everyone was worried. Word was the highway could be closed at any moment. Spencer and I decided to tear ass over the mountains and get out while we could.

As we blew past a roadblock that was in the early stages of implementation, I stared nervously up at the angry-looking plume that poured from the forest off to our left. We were the only vehicle on the usually busy highway.

“Cousin,” I said, pressing the gas to the floor, “we might have just made a terrible mistake.”

I really began to sweat — and not from the heat — once we were in the fire’s shadow. The world around us was cloaked in a murky umber, as if we were driving into Dante’s nightmare. Off to the left we could see the flames stabbing out from the treetops in angry flickers. For a few long moments I had serious questions about my judgement, but then we passed out of the shadow and were clear.

That was six weeks ago, and the fire is still going. In fact, the situation became much worse when the first fire was joined by a second that leaped up just north of Winthrop. Evacuation orders were organized. The highway was closed indefinitely, choking off the region’s much-needed flow of tourist dollars. Speaking of choking, the possibility of tourism was killed off entirely by a thick haze of toxic smoke that settled into the valley. Now, even while these first summer fires are sputtering down, a new one has erupted an hour or so east that threatens the tiny fishing town of Conconully—another place that is dear to my family.

According to the news, northern California is riddled with fires. Of course it is. It’s summer in the West, and this is just a fact of life now.

For Winthrop and the wider Methow Valley, this was the second ruined summer in a row—first the pandemic, now the fires. And while it’s uncertain how the former will shake out (it’s certainly not going as well as we all hoped), the impact of the latter is only going to worsen. As if the wildfires that we’re seeing with our own eyes weren’t evidence enough, these particular fires happened to correspond with the release of the IPCC’s latest report on climate change. Suffice to say that the news isn’t good, with this prestigious scientific body declaring, “In high-latitude regions, warming is projected to increase disturbance in boreal forests, including drought, wildfire, and pest outbreaks (high confidence).” I find their use of italics on “high confidence” especially disturbing.

For those in the Methow Valley — and indeed much of the rest of the West — the future looks to be aflame.  

As I write this I’m camped out just south of Crater Lake, and the air is choked with smoke. Last night I was camping a few hundred miles to the north where I fell asleep beneath a clear sky, but by the time I awoke in the morning it was thick with ashy haze. I drove for hours trying to escape it, but it seemed to be everywhere. It had been the same a week ago along the Columbia River Gorge — smoke so dense and pervasive that visibility dropped to a couple hundred yards.

I had planned on journeying through the Cascade Mountains of central Washington and Oregon, then down on through northern California, but it increasingly appears that those plans have been smoked — or in some cases burned — out. According to the news, northern California is riddled with fires. Of course it is. It’s summer in the West, and this is just a fact of life now.

I’m not sure how smoky it will be or if I’ll be able to reach my destination at all. Judging by what I’ve seen — not only now but over decades of watching the temperature rise, the landscape increasingly turn into tinder, and the wildfires burn up more and more each year — this is only the beginning.

Ironically, my earliest memory of the meadow in the Methow — from when I was about six — is of a particular instance when fire seemed elusive. My brother and I had been told to gather firewood, but we claimed that there was none to be found. Dad snorted and said something to the effect of, “When it’s dark and cold you’ll realize that there was plenty of wood around the whole time.”

He was right. Once the sun had set and fire had grown more appealing, it seemed as if there was firewood everywhere we cast the beams of our flashlights. As we darted around collecting sticks by the armful, the now-raging campfire rose, bats swooped low overhead and the sky broke open and out poured the Milky Way. My father sat by the fire and watched us race about at our task, his eyes glimmering from the light of the flames, a satisfied smile on his lips. 

I learned some obscure lesson that night I couldn’t conjure into words then, and it remains vague even now. Something about what can be accomplished if we only try. Something about how we only act once the sun has set and night has come. Something about putting in the work before our backs are against the wall. Something about acting before it’s too late.

Nearly twenty years later, I reflected on that night as we poured dad’s ashes into a calm eddy just downstream from the first of the Falls Creek waterfalls. Are we doomed to only recognize a problem once it is too late?

I don’t have any answers, at least none that will solve the problems at hand. It might be too late as it is. Maybe now we’re just scattering ashes in the stream.

What I do know is that the meadow burned in the most recent blaze. My brother’s fire crew was stationed somewhere else — awaiting another fire, of course — and he messaged me saying that he wished he could go fight for it; for our family’s memories. I didn’t realize that one could transmit such despair via text message. 

I also know that next year when I visit, while the scars from the fire will remain, there will already be regrowth. That won’t mean the danger has passed, but when spring comes, the shoots that grow through the char and ash will bloom hope. 

But who knows? Maybe — probably — the fires will return. My plans may have to change again. My family and I, however, will try. Beautiful places are increasingly hard to find.

Top photo: Rupert Ganzer (CC-BY-NC-SA)

The post Burning Memories, Scattering Ashes appeared first on The Statesider.

In this Issue of the Statesider
The West’s new season: wildfire season. How it’s changing travel, upending family traditions, and making us rethink our relationship with the outdoors. What to do when you want to go to Hawai‘i, but Hawai‘i says no. Plus say hi to tie-dye, a healthier guy, the folks who make festivals fly, and making lobsters cry.

Burning Memories, Scattering Ashes

Wildfires in the West have gone from an occasional worry to an annual certainty — and it’s changing how we live and travel in some of the US’s most treasured landscapes. Nick Hilden set out to tell this story and how the specter of fire looms over his family’s annual traditions, but the specter quickly became all too real. Read this Statesider Original Story

Stories Across the USA

Feeling the Mississippi: “It’s a park and it has a theme, but it’s not a theme park.” Revisiting the model Mississippi in Memphis — a graphic essay. Martha Park, Oxford American

Preserving the Beat: Bill Summers is a living museum of percussion. He founded Klub K.I.D. where students learn what it takes to be a working musician. No, that’s not right. They don’t learn, they live it. Tami Fairweather, Preservation Hall’s Salon 726

Muir Woods, Corrected: Rangers in this popular California park are revising the interpretive exhibits to present a more accurate and inclusive history. Ashley Harell, SFGATE

Bantu, Maine: How Maine’s population of Somali Bantu are creating a new model for American farming. Katy Kelleher, Down East Magazine

Dead Parking Lots Resurrected: The parking lot at a Grateful Dead concert used to be at least as much of a scene as the concert itself. The tradition is back outside Dead & Company shows. Mordechai Rubinstein & OK McCausland, New York Times

Fans may be wearing their favorite shirts, but they don’t appear dressed up in costume. They are in uniform. A group of people who wear the clothes rather than the other way around.

Rise of the Guardians: The story behind the Cleveland baseball team’s new name, and the history of the 43-foot-tall Guardians of Traffic. Vince Guerrieri, Belt Magazine

The Great (White) Outdoors: There’s a long history to the hesitancy of Black Americans to explore the great outdoors — and it didn’t happen by chance. Joe Kanzangu, Undark

Me, Myself & Sandwich: How Fat Joe became an obscenely large sandwich at the Stage Deli, but the sandwich never materialized. Now Fat Joe is Upset Joe even though Fat Joe is trying to be Healthier Joe. Peter Fearson, New York Post

“Anyone can win a Grammy, but not anyone can take a seat at the Stage Deli, point to the menu and say, ‘I’m a sandwich.'”

Don’t Call Them Carnies: Inside the world of the traveling carnival workers who make state fairs happen. Ian Power-Luetscher, Racket

Dumpster Delights: An Emmy Award-winning television host and a food and travel writer looks back on the childhood delights of the Entenmann’s Outlet — and its dumpster bounty. Kae Lani Palmisano, Food & Wine

Dumpster diving shouldn’t be illegal. Not paying people enough money to survive so they resort to Dumpster diving should be illegal.

I Saw Miles and Miles of Kreplach: Why is cowboy culture seen as synonymous with Christianity? The long history of Texas Jewish cowboys tells a different story. Dina Gachman, Texas Monthly

Statesider Hero of the Month: We’re crazy for Virginia Oliver, the 101 year old Maine lobsterwoman. Imagine being the lobster she rejects. Ouch. Brian MacQuarrie/Jessica Rinaldi, Boston Globe

The Wildfire Desk

Fire Anxiety: A change in the wind can mean everything changes. How do you plan for that? Jane Hu, Last Word on Nothing

Rethinking Outdoor Travel: That summer vacation in the West looks very different now that fires regularly affect some of the most popular destinations. Concepción de León, New York Times

Land of Smoke and Fire: These beautiful and terrifying photos capture the staggering loss of a hard season in Califorina. Jeff Frost and Lauren Markham, Lit Hub

Incarcerated Women Firefighters: Thousands of prison inmates fight fires every year. Since the 80s, women have participated in the program, too. But don’t call them “volunteers.” A new book by Jaime Lowe tells their stories. Erin Berger, Outside

To Hawai‘i or Not to Hawai‘i?

Hawai‘i: The place that seemingly every mainlander — err, statesider? — wants to be right now. And yet, COVID cases are surging, the governor wants tourists to stay away, there’s a shortage of rental cars, businesses are understaffed, and locals are getting increasingly fed up with over-tourism. Meanwhile, the popularity of The White Lotus brought attention to Maui, but not without some controversy. When it comes to Hawai‘i, it’s always more complex than you think — if you’re paying attention.

Hawai‘i Is Not Our Playground: Centuries of colonialism. Constant thoughtless over-tourism. These locals are trying to get visitors to think about Hawai‘i differently. Chris Colin, AFAR

“Even people who are otherwise politically conscious—they’d get to Hawai‘i and their brains just slip into vacation mode.”

Don’t miss the rest of AFAR’s package, A Better Way to Visit Hawai‘i, with articles on the Hawai‘i Sovereignty Movement, learning about aloha ‘āina, bringing back traditional voyaging, and how to connect with and support the islands’ culture and natural spaces.

Social Cures for Over-Tourism: Hawai‘i residents are using social media as a tool to try to divert tourists away from sensitive areas and to educate, one tweet at a time. Cassie Ordonio, Civil Beat

Vaccine Island: Hawai‘i: “Please don’t come.” Guam: “Come — and get your vaccine of choice.” Lyric Li, Washington Post

Ask The Statesider: Should I Go to Hawaii? Right now? Nope. At some point in your life? Yes, if you can. And read Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawaii by Liz Prato before you go.

We’ve seen fire and we’ve seen rain, but we always know we’ll see you again. Meanwhile, catch up on Statesider original stories here.

The post Up In Smoke appeared first on The Statesider.

In this Issue of the Statesider
Why the perfect destination is where nobody else is thinking of going, an interview with the guy who “borrowed” a Citi Bike from Manhattan and rode it across the country, what to do with all those statues, professional boat jumpers, Native murals, Presidential pyramids, vanishing utopias, and Mick Jagger’s quietest pint.

Citi Bike: Far From Home

Jeffrey Tanenhaus enjoyed getting around New York City using the local bike-share program, so much so that when he found himself between jobs and facing a “pre-midlife crisis,” he hatched an unlikely plan: Step 1: Rent a Citi Bike. Step 2: Ride it across the country. How one crazy idea turned into a scouting trip for a new home and a new way of life. Read this Statesider Interview

Stories Across the USA

The Perfect US Destination: Writer Jon Mooallem gets offered the chance to travel anywhere he wants for the NY Times Magazine. His answer: “What if I drove to Spokane?” He did. And he went to a Minor League baseball game. More of this, please. Jon Mooallem, NY Times Magazine

The mascots kept coming, too: the blue dinosaur, the other dinosaur and, most beloved of all, making his traditional appearance in the middle of the sixth, Ribby the Redband Trout.

Maisel’s Murals: Since 1939, an Albuquerque storefront has hosted murals by a who’s who of Native American artists. Now efforts are underway to document and preserve the paintings. Gwyneth Doland, New Mexico Magazine

What happened when Mick Jagger walked into the Thirsty Beaver? No, this isn’t a dirty joke. Or maybe it is. Anyway, Mick went for a beer at a low-key Charlotte saloon and not a single person recognized him. One intrepid journalist dug deep into the story of what happened that night. Jeremy Markovich, North Carolina Rabbit Hole

Always Ask a Local: There was big news in archaeology this past month: a series of footprints at White Sands, New Mexico provided strong evidence that people lived in the area before the last Ice Age, some 23,000 years ago — long before the scientific consensus. This wasn’t news to Native people. Nick Martin, High Country News

Yankee Pyramids: A look at the history and design of a peculiar American tradition: Presidential libraries. Delaney Hall, 99 Percent Invisible

Letters from Wisconsin: In Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, mail is delivered by boat. More precisely, it’s delivered by an elite group of “mail-jumpers” who leap from a moving (and tourist-filled) boat to the docks around the lake. Sometimes they miss and fall into the water. Rebecca Deurlein, Atlas Obscura

Save the Gumbo: Gumbo isn’t gumbo without filé, the powdered leaves from the sassafras plant. But sassafras is struggling, and only a few people are trying to keep the tradition — and the flavor — alive. Jonathan Olivier, Bitter Southerner

Streams of New York: One underground explorer goes deep under New York City to discover its hidden waterways. Steve Duncan, Narratively

Wrestling, Redefined: Devon Monroe doesn’t look like a wrestler. But maybe wrestling is ready for a refresh. Jerard Fagerberg, Racket

The 22-year-old performer comes to the ring draped in a gay pride flag, his cheekbones polished into gems. At 5’11” and 155 lbs, he’s bird-chested and sharp around the shoulders. He gambols to the ring like a Drag Race contestant, flaunting his ass to the crowd. When the bell finally rings, he flitters from turnbuckle to turnbuckle, a smirk drawn across his face.

California’s Vanishing Utopias: In the hippie generation, some idealists dropped out of society and went back to the land. Those days are drawing to end. David Jacob Kramer, GQ Style, of all places

Statesider Hero of the Month: “Armed with only a solar charger, a vibrator and some marijuana gummy bears, I rode out the pandemic – and my fear of spiders – in a California commune.” What else is there to say? Stephanie Theobald, The Guardian

How to Love Our National Parks: National Parks are crowded like never before. The answer isn’t more National Parks, it’s actually funding the ones we have. Jonathan Thompson, High Country News

Tax Backpackers? Should backpackers pay a tax to conserve the land they use for recreation? [Editor: No. Land conservation helps everyone, and taxing backpacking makes the outdoors only accessible to the wealthy.] Christine Peterson, Outside

Bigfoot, Vermont: You’re heading to Vermont to see the foliage change color, but something else catches your eye. Was that…Bigfoot? Meet Jake Swanson, professional Bigfoot sculptor. Aaron Calvin, Stowe Today

A Moment on Monuments

An Audit of America’s Monuments: More mermaids than congresswomen, more people fighting to preserve slavery than to end it. The story we tell of our country through the monuments we’ve chosen to erect. Gillian Brockell, Washington Post

Statues in the Balance: How Franklin, Tennessee found an alternative to tearing down Confederate statues by telling the full story. Jill Robinson, Saturday Evening Post

“There wasn’t a single piece of this project that’s been easy, but history has always been messy. If we didn’t choose to look at the truth, we’d continue down this path of intentionally not knowing as a culture.”

What Would We Do Without Statues? How can we possibly learn our history without statues? If only we had other ways. Alexandra Petri, Washington Post

What little we know of the past of this country has been supplied to us exclusively by statues. As far as we can tell from the statue record, America was founded by Washington-Jefferson-Lincoln-Roosevelt, an enormous four-headed rock monster dozens of feet high with every possible permutation of facial hair.

Order Your Copy Now

The Best American Travel Writing 2021. Edited by Padma Lakshmi (Series Editor, Jason Wilson). In stores everywhere October 12, 2021. We’re a big fan of this series every year, for obvious reasons, but we’re especially eager this year. Why? Because, for the very time, an original story by Elizabeth Miller from The Statesider was selected for this year’s volume! We’ve got good company, too, with stories from Kiese Laymon, Leslie Jamison, Bill Buford, and more. Pre-Order Now

Spend an hour in Chicago with Statesider editor Pam Mandel: Pam’s a virtual guest at 5959, an arts and culture series based in Chicago and hosted by Statesider friend Amy Guth. She’ll be taking about travel writing, her book, The Same River Twice, and probably the Statesider, if there’s time. Tickets and information here. 

If you ask us, all our stories are among the best American travel stories. If you can’t wait for the book, get your fill of Statesider original stories here.

The post Into the Great Wide Open appeared first on The Statesider.

In 2015, Jeffrey Tanenhaus rented a Citi Bike in New York City. This was often his commute of choice — in fact, he had grown to love the freedom and control he felt navigating the ever-changing obstacle course between his home and work — but he had different plans for this ride. The bike would go where no Citi Bike had gone before. Suddenly out of work and feeling the urge to find a fresh start, Jeffrey decided to try something unexpected: he would ride a Citi Bike from coast to coast. Was it possible? Would the police be after him for stealing a hefty blue bike? Was he out of his mind?

The trip was not guaranteed to go well. Citi Bikes are notoriously heavy, designed for the abuses of city life, but not for hills. Jeffrey had essentially no experience with bicycle maintenance, was relying on free places to sleep through friends and volunteer hosts found on the Warmshowers.org network, and — perhaps most importantly — he had never attempted anything like this before.

His new book, West of Wheeling: How I Quit My Job, Broke the Law & Biked to a Better Life, tells the story of his journey, the people he met along the way, and how an unlikely bicycle that came to be known as “Countri Bike” helped him chart a course for the next phase of his life. I spoke to Jeffrey from his new home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a place he fell in love with on his cross-country ride, and where he is starting a local tour business.

Some of your happiest moments of the ride were on the long rail-to-trail projects that have been popping up around the country. I’ve never considered them as anything more than a local feature, but it sounds like they proved to be a real advantage to you on your trip.

These rail-to-trails are essentially old railways that have been torn up — and railroads do not do well uphill. If there is a hill, it’s a very slight grade, you know, 1% maybe, so following a former rail bed basically guarantees a flat ride. In the cases where there is a hill — in my book I mentioned a 23.5 mile hill in Pennsylvania — and that sounds insane, but when it’s at 1%, even on a Citi Bike, it was no sweat because it was very gradual.

Since I’ve finished writing, even more rail-to-trails have opened. They opened up one [the Empire Trail] across New York state, where you can go from Buffalo down to New York City, and then up from New York City to around Plattsburgh. Then that’s connecting into something called the East Coast Greenway, which is supposed to go from Maine to Key West mostly along trails or at least bicycle friendly roads. I think you’re going to hear more about these rail-to-trails or greenways as cycling becomes more popular. If there’s any kind of silver lining to the pandemic it was that it got people on bicycles more just to be outside or at least away from crowded public transport.

You said in the book that every detour you take is a big choice when you’re on a bike, because that’s all extra effort. But on the other hand, you’re often writing about places that cars don’t go. You saw a side of the US that you wouldn’t have experienced in a car.

There’s back roads and then there’s like really back roads, right? Back roads where cars can’t go because they’re a rail-to-trail or a greenway. The railroads connected all of these little towns where the road through the town was the railroad. So you pass through small towns often that suburbanization has skipped. On a bicycle you can’t be doing 60 miles an hour. You’re going to need to stop in this next little town to see if it has a vending machine, or you hit up the local diner for a chocolate shake. And I was very partial to my chocolate shakes.

You were also partial to beer. Beer comes up a lot in the book. I’m assuming you’re a beer fan, but it seems like there’s a lot of cases where bike culture and beer culture converge in the same place and in the same people. Is there a reason for that? 

That’s a great observation. Yes, I am a fan of craft beer, not because I’m snobby, but because I think it tastes better than the mass-produced beers. Although I did hit up the Anheuser-Busch factory in St. Louis and it does taste better from the source, so I’ll give them that. But yeah, I did try to stop at as many breweries as possible just because these craft breweries have interesting people that are hanging out there and they are often bicycle-friendly. Beer brings people together. Food brings people together. A brewery is a great social spot for gathering, and a hyper-local spot as well. 

Bicycling also brings people together. It’s a social activity. But it can also be solitary, and I enjoyed the solitary aspect of it as I was trying to get through a pre-midlife crisis and figure out what I wanted to do and where I wanted to do it.

You said that you think of yourself as a bit of an introvert. Did having the bike, having your story, did that help you connect with people that you may not have been able to?

The bike was my icebreaker. The bike looked unusual, so people had questions about it. And then I had a souvenir New York license plate attached to it. So even if they didn’t quite know what the bike was, and maybe were too intimidated to ask, because maybe they were introverts themselves, everybody knew where New York was and the farther west I got, the farther away New York was. It almost became easier to approach me and ask, “Did you really ride that from New York?”

I was almost a little bit worried about advertising the fact that I was from New York. You know, riding through places, rural areas that may associate New York with different values from their “Heartland” values, and that NY license plate may have been an unwelcome sight. But in fact it was not, and it inspired a lot of questions, curiosity, and that created a conversation.

The way you described the cities you visited, it seemed like you were almost shopping for a new place to live. Was that explicitly on your mind?

It was very much on my mind. I didn’t know if it was on my mind on day one, but as I began making progress, I realized that I was auditioning these cities. Could I see myself living in DC? I had spent time there on a government internship in college, but I hadn’t been there in 16 years It’s a pretty cool city. It’s got a very low skyline compared to New York, and I got a good vibe. 

Then I ended up in Pittsburgh and liked that even better. It had a grittier spirit that I kind of liked compared to the DC political scene. Maybe Pittsburgh was where I needed to be? Lots of entrepreneurs, it’s a tech-friendly city and also very bicycle progressive. I arrived right on time for a big bicycle event and ended up getting connected with a woman who had started her own bike touring company. I wrote about her story quite a bit in the book, and she became a lifelong friend. So yeah, I was like, “Hey, Pittsburgh is pretty great.”

Then Cincinnati was the next big city and I already had cousins there, but had never visited. When you’re from New York, why would you ever go visit Cincinnati? You should just come visit me because New York is the end-all be-all. But I went on some group rides there and, hey, there’s these cool breweries in this place? It has all this old, historic residential and commercial architecture. These buildings are just crumbling, and they have these adopt-a-building programs. I am really interested in placemaking to make an impact for the community. How cool would that be to fix something up and create a B&B or a brewery or something?

Then there was Louisville, St. Louis, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Flagstaff and Los Angeles. I was hanging out in these places, meeting other bike-friendly, like-minded people and seeing the city through their eyes. 

It sounds like you mostly had really great interpersonal experiences across the country, with other bicyclists, Warmshowers hosts, and people in local businesses wherever you went. Did it leave you with any sort of big takeaways about your fellow Americans?

This was all before the election of 2016, which really began to accelerate the partisan polarization. And now there’s disinformation and there’s a pandemic. I mean, there’s some real fractures in our society. But at the time, I certainly was attuned to the fact that I was riding places that were not aligned with me politically, but I was very much not going around sharing my New York City viewpoint of how I think the country should run. So by being a listener and being humble and respectful I was able to have great conversations without getting into politics or religion and things like that.

When you just have a conversation, it can still be personal. I told people where I was from and why I was on this ride, how I was trying to see America. I think that’s something everybody can relate to.

Pie or cake? And where?

I’m still going for the chocolate shake on this. I’m a chocolate shake fan. I know that wasn’t an option, but I was on a mission to find the perfect chocolate shake. 

I did have a really good slice of a German chocolate cake in Hermann, Missouri, which was founded by two German immigrants, because they were worried that Philadelphia was becoming too corrupted, so they established this more remote community to better preserve their traditions. About an hour west of St. Louis by car, there’s this fabulous small town right on the Missouri river. They chose that area because it looked like the Rhine.

Did you know that German chocolate cake is actually named after a person from Texas whose last name was German?

Don’t tell Hermann, Missouri.

Did you ever find the perfect chocolate shake?

There was a great one that I wrote about in leaving Pittsburgh, which was a very tough day climbing out of the Allegheny Valley. And getting out of Pittsburgh was a bit of a mess. You’re going through some depressed little suburbs, and not good road conditions. Then I came across a diner creatively called “The Diner,” in Oakdale, Pennsylvania, and had a nice little interaction at that diner and stopped in for a chocolate shake and was so glad I did, because that was a very sweet end to my Pennsylvania experience. 

West of Wheeling: How I Quit My Job, Broke the Law & Biked to a Better Life, by Jeffrey Tanenhaus (2021, Houndstooth Press). Order a copy today and support local independent bookshops across the country.

All photos courtesy of Jeffrey Tanenhaus

The post Citi Bike: Far From Home appeared first on The Statesider.