Road Trip 2023
Stories from a 3500 mile road trip from Richmond, Virginia to Winnipeg, Manitoba
Road Trip Episode 1: Getting mired
Last week, I headed out for a three-week, 3,500 mile road trip from my home in Richmond, Virginia to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and back again. After a summer at home focused on toxifying and then detoxifying my body from chemotherapy, this adventure is a gift to myself (and from my wife). I’m traveling to explore, think, write, remember, …
Road Trip Episode 2, Part 1: A Visit to the Prairies
I would guess few Americans know much, if anything, about the city of Winnipeg. Those of us who have the luxury to travel to Canada have possibly been to Toronto with its iconic CN Tower and fabled museums and galleries. You might have even visited Notre-Dame Basilica and Biosphere Museum De L'environnement in Montreal or the quaint shops, fortified wal…
Road Trip Episode 2, Part 2: Winnipeg's Food and Flora
Two highlights of my trip to Winnipeg (see Road Trip Episode 2, Part 1 for more), included dinner at a fabulous first nations’ restaurant called Feast Café Bistro and a visit to the newly constructed biosphere called The Leaf. At Feast, I enjoyed Manitoba’s official fish, pickerel. Although I learned in researching pickerel that there’s debate about whet…
Road Trip Episode 3: A Ghost in a Michigan Cornfield
The sign pointing to Deerfield snapped me out of the meditative state I found myself in after driving past countless corn fields on either side of the Ohio/Michigan border. Some fields appeared pregnant with corn ready to be harvested, while others cried out to be planted—barren wastelands forgotten and abandoned on this secluded highway.
Road Trip Episode 5, Part 1: The Road Not Taken
I hadn’t intended to cross the border into Manitoba that day. In keeping with my overall plan to drive no more than four hours a day, I figured I’d travel three hours from Rogers, near Minneapolis, to Fargo. Depending on how I felt and hotel availability, I might decide to go another hour after that to Grand Forks. Either way, that would leave only a fe…
Road Trip Episode 5, Part 2: A Lesson in Privilege
In Road Trip Episode 5, Part 1: The Road Not Taken, I describe my route from Minneapolis to Winnipeg and how my choice not to take “the one less traveled by,” might have impacted my travel plans. Today, we begin at the Pembina–Emerson Border Crossing between North Dakota and Manitoba.