Globe Corner Blogs

Tourista! - photo by Sarah

When I returned to the 7-11, Stosh was just returning from getting the car fixed. He had met a local college student who spoke English. He was eager to help get the car fixed in return for a ride to Cascada Cola de Caballo, a local tourist destination that featuring hiking, waterfalls, and – yes – bungee jumping.

Cola de Caballo is Spanish for “Horse Tail” and describes a waterfall that sits above the forest canopy an hour outside of Monterrey. The place reads like Disneyland: families, resorts, stalls selling knick-knacks and food – all in a way that seemed utterly foreign and strange. The concept of taking a natural landscape and creating this kind of tourist attraction seemed odd to me; In America, we build roller coasters and ferris wheels for this kind of enjoyment. Nature is held in a forced state of pristine beauty, in reserves and national parks. Here, the peacocks were drinking piña coladas the size of my head, and a midget ticket-taker was sitting on a donkey.

Continue Reading »

Monterrey Mural - photo by Sarah

Monterrey, Mexico is a geodesic prism of youth culture that lies under the radar of foreign tourists. I arrived after three ten-hour days of driving in the desert in a van with no air conditioning. My glasses had broken at the onset of the trip when the van broke down in New Mexico. Rather, I broke my glasses in the broken van and it all seemed so fitting – Murphy’s Law or some other idea that can be referenced in situations where everything is spiraling in a direction you’d rather not see it go.

Two hours into a month-long trip through seven countries, the van broke down. Parked at the closed mechanic’s shop, I practiced yoga in the back of the van. When I got up from a shoulder stand, my glasses were absurdly looking back at me in two pieces. Like a pug whose eyes look in two different directions. Maybe I shouted, or maybe I laughed, but in either case I was frustrated, and continued to be playfully frustrated for the next three days as I wrestled my broken glasses onto my face with duct tape.

Continue Reading »

Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon

“I took to the open road in search of places where change did not mean ruin and where time and men and deeds connected.” And such is the reasoning behind Blue Highways, a travelogue of a man and his van, traveling around the perimeter of the United States solely on backroads, no federal highways allowed. William Least Heat-Moon named his van Ghost Dancing, an homage to the resurrection rituals of Plains Indians–he left home in part for personal reasons. But he also went to see the parts of America few people ever see, except those living there. He wanted to travel from Simplicity, Virginia to Whynot, Mississippi and onward.

Perhaps what he accomplished could not be done today–the trip was taken in the late-70s–but it seems worth a shot. The people Least Heat-Moon met and talked to at length is the meat of the book; his actual travels merely the backbone. He has an uncanny ability to get to the heart of a town and has an insatiable curiosity that gets him deep into the relations of people to each other in the town, the relation of them to the rest of the country, the peoples’ personal philosophies, and often, the story behind the name of the place.

Continue Reading »

Globe Corner Bookstore’s Shortlist of Road Trip Literature

This shortlist includes classic travelogues and essays about the search for America – and often in the process, the self.  Discover the backroads and highways, the deserts and the forests, the small towns and the cities, that make the romance of the road irresistible to travelers and writers.

…

On the Road
by Jack Kerouac
An American classic. The novel that defined the Beat generation, this exuberant tale of two men traversing America is as fresh and fantastic as ever. Few novels have had as profound an impact as On the Road, and Kerouac’s vision continues to inspire.

…

…

Travels with Charley: In Search of America
by John Steinbeck
To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light–these were John Steinbeck’s goals as he set out, at the age of 58, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years. A picaresque tale, this chronicle of their trip meanders along scenic backroads and speeds along anonymous superhighways, moving from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases.

…

Roads
by Larry McMurtry
As he crisscrosses America — driving in search of the present, the past, and himself — Larry McMurtry shares his fascination with this nation’s great trails and the culture that has developed around them. As he drives, McMurtry reminisces about the places he’s seen, the people he’s met, and the books he’s read. He explains why watching episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” might be the best way to find joie de vivre in Minnesota; the scenic differences between Route 35 and I-801; which vigilantes lived in Montana and which hailed from Idaho; and the history of Lewis and Clark, Sitting Bull, and Custer that still haunts Route 2 today.

…

Blue Highways: A Journey into America
by William Least Heat-Moon
In this highly acclaimed, bestselling memoir, a 38-year-old laid-off college professor drives around the U.S. on the “blue highways, ” the rural back made that are colored blue on old maps. The places he discovers during his 13,000-mile journey are unexpected, sometimes mysterious, and often full of the simple wonders of the ordinary.

…

Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey
by William Least Heat-Moon
for the first time since “Blue Highways,” Heat-Moon is back on the roads in this lyrical, funny, and touching account of a series of journeys into small-town America.

…

…

The Lost Continent

by Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson’s unsparing and hilarious account of his travels across America in search of the perfect small town. At the end of his journey, Bryson finds not the idyllic town of his dream, but a true understanding of America–and a certainty that despite the poverty and ignorance, there is much good in the island.

…

Bad Land: An American Romance
by Jonathan Raban
Startlingly observed, beautifully written, this book is a contemporary classic of the American West. Seduced by the government’s offer of 320 acres per homesteader, Americans and Europeans rushed to Montana and the Dakotas to fulfill their own American dream in the first decade of this century. Raban’s stunning evocation of the harrowing, desperate reality behind the homesteader’s dream strips away the myth–while preserving the romance–that has shrouded our understanding of our own heartland.

…

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Robert Pirsig
Pirsig’s classic narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son from Minneapolis to San Francisco. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions on how to live. The craft of motorcycle maintenance leads to an austerely beautiful process for reconciling science, religion, and humanism.

…

Names On the Land
by George R. Stewart
This classic study of place-naming in the United States was written during World War II as a tribute to the varied heritage of the nation’s peoples. More than half a century later, it remains the authoritative source on the subject. Stewart’s intimate knowledge of America and love of anecdote make his book a delightful window on American history and social life and will engage anyone who has ever wondered at the curious names scattered across the American map.

…

State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America
edited by Sean Wilsey & Matt Weiland
Inspired by the example of the legendary WPA American Guide series of the 1930s and ’40s, now 50 of our foremost writers have produced original pieces of reportage and memoir that capture the 50 states in our time, creating a fresh portrait of America as it lives and breathes today.

…