Latest News
The Road to Speck
The mules and I are screwed up at the crossroads. Three roads. No signs.
Which way to Speck?
I flag down the muddy truck and ask the guy with the beard, “which road goes to Speck?”
His name is Sean Pendelton.
This flagging down cars for directions is part of mule travel in eastern Kentucky. I still travel with paper maps. Even when I use my… Continue reading
7 Sleeps
Where will I spend the night? Out here traveling across Kentucky with my mules, I rarely know. About 3 hours before sundown I start knocking on doors, asking folks where the mules and I might lay over until the next day.
Though it’s nerve wracking looking for a place to spend the night with your mules, it’s fun looking… Continue reading
The Colorist
He stepped out of a battered van and told me, “My first color was Play Boy Pink and we sold a 55 gallon drum of it to Hugh Heffner.”
He was a colorist. I’m a guy traveling with mules. People tell me all sorts of things. I just take them at their word. With all the words people pour in to my ears, making judgements is too much work.
The words poured out.
Him: “I also… Continue reading
I Hope Their Legs Keep Working
The mules were tied to the chain link fence on the side of the highway. They were eating away their hour-long lunch break.
I heard the putt putt of a 4-wheeler.
Many people I’ve met on this trip that ride 4-wheelers are out of shape. Big. Many look like they can’t use their legs any more. Not all. But many.
I turned. Expected what to see.
These 2 looked like their legs still worked.
“You’re in Gray,”… Continue reading
Whose Lights are the Miners Keeping On?
The mules and I are riding deep in to Kentucky coal mining territory. The billboards advertise line boring, hydraulic hoses and prep plants. Retired coal miners and their families talk to me of black lung, cancer and OCPD – Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
When I saw this billboard, I had to wonder. Whose lights are the miners keeping on – America’s or the funeral home’s?
Keep Out Bang Bang
Traveling the land with my mules, I must have faith that I’ll encounter man’s better nature. Then I see a sign threatening as a revolver to the belly and it reminds me of man’s darker side. Of how thin the veneer is in some places. This sign I came across outside Lily, Kentucky, makes… Continue reading
Where is Home?
Where is home? Where, indeed, is home when you sleep in a tent one night. Or your sleeping bag cast out under stars. Or the horse trailer of someone you met 2 hours ago on the side of the road. Or someone’s spare bedroom. Where is home to the man who is traveling the land with his mules?
Hay Field Breakfast
Mules Brick and Cracker and I spend most of our days clip clopping up some Tennessee highway shoulder. Tractor trailers roar past. Cars honk. Drivers wave. I spend all my energy guiding my small troupe safely to the next destination. We are riding West.
Riding the shoulders… Continue reading
Spring in Lily, Kentucky
It’s fitting that I ran in to “real” spring (as opposed to signs of spring) in Lily, Kentucky.
After riding mules Brick and Cracker 20 miles up Highway 25, I was loosing the light fast and starting to wonder where the mules and I were going to spend the night.
I spied a lady trimming a vine in her yard. Pulled the mules in to ask if there was a patch of grass where I could tie them up for… Continue reading
Why My Wife Isn't Mule Rambling With Me – This Time
“Where’s your wife?” folks ask me when I tell them I’m married.
I tell them that my wife Julia stayed at home.
I explain that I’m riding toward her brother’s home in Idaho. That she’ll come visit me when I get there.
But that’s… Continue reading