Wayward Stories

Welcome back to Wayward Stories!   What’s up all of my spooky wayward souls?!   it’s that time again, and the best season of the year is upon us! True to tradition, we’re back this year with more spooky stories from the backcountry. This year we have a blast from my childhood, telling stories from a book that seriously terrified my 12 year old self!   I hope you’ll join me tonight to hear all about it!     If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   [email protected]   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com    

Welcome back to Wayward Stories!   Tonight we’re going to take one banger of a road trip, and explore some 2,500 miles of the upper west!   I recently had the opportunity to take a driving tour of Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota and all of the National Parks along the way!   Join me tonight to hear all about the Black Hills, the Badlands, the Bighorn Mountains, the Platte River, Wall Drug, Deadwood, and more!   It turns out taking a Hoe-bath in a Love’s parking lot and sleeping in your car isn’t a terrible way to see the country… 😬   I hope you’ll join me tonight to hear all about it!     If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   [email protected]   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com   Thanks for Listening!

Welcome back to Wayward Stories!   Tonight we are, yet again, going to embrace that Nomad Spirit, Sedentary Life energy we harnessed a couple of years back when school had me unable to go pretty much anywhere.   As we talked about in the last episode, I’ve recently been working on some itineraries for road trips from our national historic site that would trace the historic trails set by some of the earliest explorers. So tonight, we’re going to explore in the footsteps of one Edward Fitzgerald Beale, the man who “built” the first transcontinental wagon road across the U.S.   I promise tonight’s show won’t bore you to tears with my historic predilections, because ol’ Eddie Beale wasn’t just blazing our nation’s first transcontinental highway for horses and buggies…he was building what we become a road trip classic bucket-lister…Route 66. There will be national parks, national monuments, state parks, national historic sites, national battlefields, BLM backcountry byways, national Forests, and more!   Also, camels 🐫   Listen in tonight and learn how not just one, but four early southwestern explorers would explore, blaze, engineer, and improve a trail that would eventually become a world-renowned cultural icon.   I hope you’ll join me tonight to hear all about it!     If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   [email protected]   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com    

Welcome back to Wayward Stories!   Tonight we’re going to get back onto some of that Nomad Spirit, Sedentary Life energy we harnessed a couple of years back when school had me unable to go pretty much anywhere.   I’ve recently been working on some itineraries for road trips from our national historic site that would trace the historic trails set by some of the earliest American explorers. So tonight, since I’ve been unable to do anything for quite some time, we’re going to explore one of those itineraries. First traveled by Americans in 1821, the southern route of the Santa Fe Trail would go on to be a legendary legacy travel corridor. Tonight we’re going to visit 26 different destinations on a massive round-trip adventure that will take us from natural wonders to cultural Meccas. From places like the Great Salt Plains and it’s alabaster caverns to cultural centers like Santa Fe and Taos, the American southwest has a road trip tradition 200 years in the making.      I hope you’ll join me tonight to hear all about it!     If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   [email protected]   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com    

Welcome back to Wayward Stories!   Tonight we’re going to explore some more blue highways as we take a little day trip to Nebraska.   Just because.   I awoke at 5 am on my day off a few weeks ago and thought: “what the heck am I gonna do today?”   And then realized…I’d never been to Nebraska before. That was all the reason I needed. A six and a half hour drive is child’s play…so off I went. Join me tonight to hear about Atchison, Kansas, the glacial hills scenic byway, the Lewis and Clark Trail, and a little place called Rulo, Nebraska.   What’s in Rulo?   Not much, as it turns out. But man was it worth the drive!   Join me tonight to hear all about it!   If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   [email protected]   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com    

Welcome back to Wayward Stories!   Tonight we’re going to explore a concept wholly new to me, ‘cause apparently I live under a rock.   Blue Highways. It’s been a philosophical concept of American road-tripping since 1978, but I’m just now hearing about it.   The idea is simple: stay off the interstate. Take the back roads, the state highways, the county roads. Meet the people. Visit the small towns. Discover the quirks and idiosyncrasies. Essentially - See the fabric of America, not just the endless seams. Why blue highways? At the time this idea was conceived, blue was the color used by Rand McNally to denote these smaller backroads in their famous atlases and maps.   Tonight we’ll talk about that philosophical framework by telling a story of one of my day trips - to Jefferson, Texas, specifically - on one of those blue highways.   Jefferson is a historic hotspot, filled with Victorian architecture, steamboat legends, haunted hotels, and folklore galore. It was one of my more memorable one-day jaunts, so I hope you’ll join me tonight to hear all about it!   If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   [email protected]   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com    

Welcome back to Wayward Stories!   Tonight we’re going to explore some of the forgotten and abandoned places deep in the mountains of Arkansas. We’re going into the Ozarks to bushwhack our way to the abandoned Shore’s Lake Civilian Conservation Corps camp, look for the vestiges of the Combs, Cass and Eastern Railway, and then head south into the Ouachitas to a superhighway that leads to nowhere. Oh,  and an abandoned logging town that once played host to 1,300 residents to boot!   I hope you’ll join me tonight to hear all about it!   If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   [email protected]   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com

Welcome back to Wayward Stories!   Tonight we’re going to explore yet another location significant to America’s Wild, Wild West! We’re going to take a trip to Kansas City and explore the Arabia Steamboat Museum, as well as some of the jumping off locations for the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California trails. There will be steam boats, covered wagons, crappy ghost tours and so much more!   I hope you’ll join me tonight to hear all about it!   If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   [email protected]   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com    

In tonight’s show we pick back up on a little “series within a series” I started a couple of years ago entitled “Exploring the Wild, Wild West.” We previously explored Coffeyville and Dodge City, KS as well as the Santa Fe Trail. In tonight’s episode, we’re going to explore one of the very earliest Wild West towns in America…Fort Smith, Arkansas,  home to “Hell on the Border” - one of the nastiest jails ever to house a baddie. We also happen to be the only place I’ve ever heard of that someone brought a cannon to a fist fight…so if you enjoy a road trip to a place with a long and colorful history, a weekend adventure to Fort Smith might be right up your alley!   Luckily for me, this is an easy episode…as I am currently a park ranger at Fort Smith National Historic Site…and tonight’s episode is sort of just another day at work!   I hope you’ll join me tonight to hear all about it!   If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   [email protected]   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com    

In tonight’s show, we’re going to talk about long-lived pieces of gear in our kit and the role they can play in the story-arc of our lives. As I prepare to retire a backpack that has accompanied me across tens of thousands of miles or roads, rivers, and wildernesses, it only seems fitting to look back on the adventures it enabled me to take. And as is our custom here at Wayward Stories, we shall wax philosophical about archetypes, story-arcs, and the paths we take in following our personal journeys!   I hope you’ll join me tonight to hear all about it!   If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   [email protected]   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com