Coming home after a 17-month walkabout
In June 2024, I drove away from my home in St. Paul in a used Dodge Promaster camper van. In December 2025, I parked that same van in front of my new apartment in Minneapolis. In the 17 months in between, I visited 25 states, drove 28,000 miles, and experienced just about every shade of […]
Genius loci
I am watching the sun rise over the mountains ringing Cora, Wyoming. A thin and crooked line of pink marks the boundary between mountain silhouette and thick clouds above. I am either in the town proper or just outside it. It’s hard to tell because there’s a decided lack of right angles or urban planning. […]
Generosity is the only story
I’ve noticed the two words I use most often on the road are generosity and wow. It feels important to record examples of both as nothing-too-small counterweights in our current perilous season. I parked my van Monday evening in the driveway of Morgan Varner and Charisse Matlock’s new home in Iowa City. They had finished the laborious process of […]
The mud, the blood and the beer
I have given up trying to craft a pithy and succinct explanation for my walkabout adventure, now nearing the three-week mark. Or more accurately, fresh explanations arrive nearly every day to satisfy the part of me that insists on order and narrative continuity. That part of me cringes when I say I am doing this thing […]
Shopping for God
My friend Arthur Crowell owns 50 acres of deep woods in Franklin County, Missouri, 40 miles southwest of St. Louis. He bought the property four years ago and named it Sage Mountain. Arthur is driven by his unwavering vision to coax enough structure to make this wild place hospitable for campers and rock climbers and […]
Shining like the sun
Trappist monk Thomas Merton was a prolific writer before his early death in 1968. But he’s best known for a spiritual epiphany that happened on the corner of Fourth and Walnut streets in Louisville, Kentucky. “There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun,” he wrote afterward. Today […]
Escape velocity
After a push at the end, the preparations for my walkabout are done. All of the real estate and bank forms: submitted. All of the boxes helpfully marked “miscellaneous”: stored. All of the jars of specialty ingredients that I used once in six years: given away. My camper van: filled with diesel, tire pressure checked. […]
The label doesn’t matter
I’ve gone through a string of changes in the past 10 years: two divorces, one marriage, a layoff, three jobs, three houses, health challenges and a drop in my account balances. Through it all two things have remained constant: First, an unshakeable conviction that I am being guided and held by a force outside of […]
Shoving off on an odyssey
That’s me with my new camper van! I picked up the 2014 Dodge Ram Promaster on Monday. It started life as a commercial van. The seller bought it from a Twin Cities hardware store and DIY tricked out the inside. He also added solar panels and a rooftop deck that’ll be perfect for sipping chardonnay […]
The Joy Economy
In 2016, I invested in video equipment to capture stories of souls that shout. The idea came to me when a former co-worker generously reached out to offer support after I was laid off. Susanne and I arranged breakfast, and she told me what her soul was shouting about. The great passion in her life […]