Wayward Stories

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 tonig...

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 m...

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 town...

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. O...

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’l...

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...

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 w...

Tonight we’re taking a deep dive into the biggest road trip I’ve ever made in my life. It is that time of year again, with Thanksgiving and my birthday upon us, but this year there’s a wild card in the mix…. my commencement and the conferral of my degree in Manchester New Hampshire.   We’re going to explore Salem, Boston, Lexington, Concord, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Kittery, ME, the Mohawk River...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   Who’s in the mood for a little day trip into the soul? Tonight’s show finds us taking a little bit of a philosophical journey into the value of roadtrips as little mini-therapy sessions for the good of the soul. Fear not intrepid wayfarers…we will indeed explore a little day trip to tiny town of Calico Rock here in Arkansas.   We definitely stray into “wondering”...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   WHAT’S UP WITCHES?!?!?   It’s spooky season once again, baby! My favorite time of year!   For our 2025 installment, we’re going to take some legend tripping adventures through the Arkansas hills and hollers. From creepy cryptids to inexplicable spooky lights, and from haunted hotels to the last vestiges of hill country folk magic, tonight’s show promises to excit...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   This week we are once again going to explore America’s Mother Road, Route 66. This iteration takes us from from Texola to Tucumcari. This little adventure qualifies as Baby Bear’s Birthday Bash - 2025 edition.      This stretch of 66 plays host to multiple iconic sites that inspired scenes in the Pixar movies “Cars”, as well as icons such as the Cadillac Ranch, t...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   This week we’re going to explore America’s Mother Road, Route 66, from Tulsa to Texola, the little town that sends Oklahoma’s portion of 66 on into Texas. Oklahoma hosts not only its own state museum for 66, but also the National Route 66 museum, as well as numerous Route 66 icons. From ruins to neon and from greasy spoons to vintage service stations, Oklahoma’s...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   Tonight we explore an often overlooked section of America’s iconic Route 66 - Southeast Kansas. Kansas hosts only 13.2 miles of Route 66, but that 13.2 miles is all original and hosts one of the most widely recognized service stations and characters in all of Route Sixty Six-dom.   Listen in tonight to hear all about it!   If you’d like to get in touch with me, j...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   This week we finally find ourself at the oft-mentioned episode “that was coming eventually”. For our 100th episode and belated 4 year anniversary, it seems fitting to look back at how far we’ve come and where we’re heading next!   Listen in now to hear all about it!   If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   mywaywardstory@gmail.com   -or-...

This week we explore northeastern Oklahoma’s “green country”…the Ozark foothills where Wilson Rawl’s classic work is set. Science folks might try to convince you there’s no such thing as a red fern in the American interior highlands, but we natives know better than that…   Join us tonight as we recount my daughter and I’s adventure introducing her to the real world locations of her latest favorite...

…on such a winter’s daaaaayyyy….   Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   This week we recap my holiday adventures and take a quick trip to a Christmas-light-bedazzled theme park with my daughter as well as a 3-day adventure to southeastern Colorado. There will be gold fields, backcountry byways, people hanging 1,000 above the bottom of a gorge by a single rope, and peeing in parking lots in 20 degree...

I hope you all have a great holiday season!

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   This week we explore the famous Santa Fe trail through Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. Outlaw hideouts in the Oklahoma panhandle, trading posts on the trail, abandoned mining camps, infamous cemeteries, and my new favorite food (until I find the next one) are all on tap, and the American Wild West will be won…or at least subdued within reasonable parameters. A...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   This week we explore some locations associated with what we would know today as “the Wild West”, or perhaps the very early American Frontier during the days of westward expansion. There will be shootouts, there will be soldiers, there will be forts, and there WILL. BE. FRIED. CHICKEN!   Listen in now to hear all about it!   If you’d like to get in touch with me,...

Weeeeeellllllll…hi guys! It’s been a minute or two…months.  I’m still alive, spooky season is here…so let’s hang out for an hour and a half and tell some creepy stories! Remember, ghosts are going to stalk you no matter where you are, so you might as well get off your tail and go out and look for some that have never haunted your dreams…just to keep life spicy.   www.waywardstories.com   Swing by...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   It is my daughter’s birthday month. So this week’s show is going to line out her birthday gift.… a big 3 Day Weekend road trip!   Of all the options she was given to choose from she chose the absolute nerdiest, much to my delight. Check out tonight’s show to hear all about Poverty Point, Louisiana, Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the haunted antebellum McRaven tour h...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   It’s been a long six week hiatus, but we’re back! Life has been crazy and I’ve been running like a maniac trying to keep things on track, but excuses aside it’s time for a new episode. This week we’re going to talk about some truly hidden gems…since modern travel writers don’t seem to know what the term “hidden” actually means. We’re going to explore the Ouachita...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   This week I embark upon both literal and philosophical adventures as I contemplate the importance of seizing the moments of our lives before they disappear like dust in the wind (see what I did there?). In addition to this philosophical sidetrack, we talk about some of my recent adventures as well as some of our listener’s adventures to boot!   Listen in now to h...

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   This week we explore Arkansas’…and America’s…First* National Park…Hot Springs!   Listen in now to hear all about it!   If you’d like to get in touch with me, just shoot an email to   mywaywardstory@gmail.com   -or-   Head on over to   www.waywardstories.com   Thanks for listening!

Welcome Back to Wayward Stories!   This week…well, we all know what happened this week.   It was the much anticipated 2024 total solar eclipse, and it scurried its way right over my head in this great state of Arkansas. This week’s episode details my adventure to find a wilderness setting in which to experience and capture it.   This experience truly moved me, and I think it’s evident in tonight’s...