Life in Idaho… I’ve been practicing my fly-fishing cast out in the road behind our RV, aiming to land my fly on a paper plate. Jon has been out with me, working on technique–and he’ll take me to try it on water once I’m hitting that plate regularly. (We picked up our three-year hunting-and-fishing licenses …
I’ve just been pondering what defines a ghost town. On paper, you’d probably consider Placerville Idaho in that category—it’s down to thirty or so households from its 1860s gold-rush heyday of more than three thousand… Visitors can enjoy the sight of an old general store, saloon, and other mining-era buildings that now operate as summer-hour museums. …
This evening, a particular piece of kid-art caught my eye. We have their notes and drawings tacked up all over the place—on the walls, on the fridge—but when something is always there you sometimes stop seeing it. That’s the case with this piece , carefully dated 8-2-11 (almost exactly a year ago) with sticker-letters spelling …
Tricia Mitchell just posted a lovely blog about the castle in Heidelberg, Germany–accompanied by some of her own photos and memories of this castle over the years, and posing the question of whether her readers had memories to share. I wrote to her that although it’s been almost three decades since I’ve been there (and although I …
Last week a time-warp descended on the State Park beside our house. Overlaid on the invisible borders of the frisbee-golf course, an army encampment of Civil War soldiers and camp followers sprang up, authentic in every detail (except, perhaps, for the general lack of dirt and grime). This group of history hobbyists pitches camp here …
Ah, trick question! Of course you wouldn’t bury an owl, because the Migratory Bird Act makes it illegal in the United States to be in possession of even an owl feather, let alone the entire dead bird. (Or three.) So of course this post is entirely a work of fiction. (Cough, cough.) Last summer I …
[Published in the Sep 2011 issue of Western Byways magazine… I thought I’d trot it out here as well.] Perched in the Owyhee Mountains at the center of 250 once-active gold mines, Silver City is often referred to as a ghost town–but that’s not a description I recommend using within hearing of its residents. A …
