travel

Winter Blues?

For years, I’ve wanted to visit Lamar Valley in the winter, especially to see wolves. Located in the remote northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park, the Lamar Valley is America’s version of the Serengeti. Or soI’ve read. And Montana Highway 212, the only road that’s open to vehicular traffic during Yellowstone’s winter season, just happens […]

Bridge

The Bridge

I was running late. Hannibal was still an hour away. So I took a short cut. My car was making good time on the back roads, slicing down straightaways that squeezed between flat soybean fields, where traffic is sparse. The phone lines drooped and rose in rhythm from one telephone pole to the next. My […]

sailing

Setting Sail

photography by Pete Jackson The dying words of the 39-year-old veteran on my MRI table were, “I just wish I’d bought a boat.” I’d never been sailing before, but ignorance has never stopped me from jumping in head first. I knew myself well enough to know that the decision must be rash and impulsive or […]

river

PaddleMO Celebrates Missouri River Country

The floating season doesn’t end with the Labor Day weekend. Fall can be the most beautiful time of year to be out on Missouri’s rivers and streams. A case in point is PaddleMO, a 100-mile journey on the Missouri River held in late September, when the weather is still warm but not scorchingly hot and […]

JoAnn

Exercising Their Retirement Options

Chuck and JoAnn Wilson are sitting together at 10:30 a.m. in the living room of their villa at Old Hawthorne. Their dogs, Dotty and Coali, are lying down nearby. Outside, a brisk winter wind is blowing across part of the golf course that is their backyard. Somewhere in Columbia, people are complaining about the gray […]