Just outside Quartzite, Arizona, not far from the California border, a massive bonfire crackles and occasionally pops, sending sparks into the dimming sky. Basketball-sized boulders circle the flames, and about three feet wider, smaller rocks ring the boulders to keep anyone from getting too close to the fire. Double that distance again and a mix…
On the afternoon of June 25, 1876, high atop the bluffs over Montana’s Little Bighorn River, General George Armstrong Custer, clad in frontier buckskins, lead 210 men of the U.S. 7th Cavalry down a ravine in pursuit of rebellious Sioux Indians. Two days later, a relief force curious as to his whereabouts arrived and found a gruesome sight. Scattered over a wide area on several hills were all 210 of Custer’s men… each man lying in the sun, scalped, stripped naked, and often mutilated. One victim had 105 arrows stuck in him…
By RC Staab On the eve of America’s 250th birthday, this country can sometimes feel like it is coming apart at the seams. Voices shout past each other to beg the question whether this grand experiment in democracy can hold. So, in the spirit of both escape and inquiry, I decided to step into a…
By Kerrick James America’s greatest writer, Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain, grew up on the western shore of North America’s greatest river, the mighty Mississippi. Abraham Lincoln called it the Father of Waters. I prefer to think of this wide, muscular river as America’s Nile, since it drains 1,125 million…
By Christine Loomis Jason Younis y Delgado, fifth-generation tinsmith, sits at a table off the sunbaked plazuela of Casa San Ysidro in Corrales, New Mexico. The Casa is part of an historic adobe complex affiliated with the Albuquerque Museum. Surrounded by pieces of tin and rows of tools, he’s fabricating traditional tin works to sell…
By Steffy McCourt Untouched by the glaciers that leveled the northern part of the state, Southern Indiana swells and ebbs against an unending sky, forested hills, and ancient farms. On its winding two-lane roads, it unfolds like a good story… slow turns, familiar scenes, a feeling that you’ve been here before, even if you haven’t.…
By Ramaa Reddy New York City is a wonderland to visit in winter and can captivate visitors with its spellbinding attractions, sights, and sounds. Eternally an iconic city, it was born of grit, and its unique racial and cultural diversity has spawned a variety of restaurants, music talents, and distinctive establishments. Its fame and attractions…
The British Army was on the move and the American militia was scattered across the New York countryside. What followed were nights of courage and defiance that helped shape the outcome of the Revolution. Through midnight rides, strategic river control, and decisive battles from Long Island and Fort Ticonderoga to Saratoga, New York emerged as a true battleground that determined America’s fate. Join writer Mark Orwoll as he traces the battles, landscapes, and forgotten heroes that made New York the linchpin of America’s fight for independence.
By Cynthia David By the thousands they came, between 1880 and 1920, fleeing poverty and starvation in Southern Italy to power America’s factories, build roads and dig tunnels. Like every wave of newcomers, the hard-working Italians found comfort in recreating the familiar recipes and cooking techniques they’d left behind. Little did they know la pizza,…
By Kerrick James There is a yin ~ yang interplay of life and seasons in the corridors of sandstone canyons as the Colorado River makes its passage south through Utah, before being released below Arizona’s Glen Canyon Dam. Sometimes called the ‘American Nile,’ the great river of the American Southwest drops 9,010 feet from its…