Showing Archived Posts

California, There They Go

Posted March 16th, 2010 at 5:29 pm (UTC-4)
2 comments

On our journey through the American West, it’s about time to mosey into California, America’s most populous state by far. To give you an idea of just how popular this “land of milk and honey” became, California is only 1½ times bigger than another western state — Wyoming — but it has 74 times more […]

Tags: Posted in Uncategorized

Enchantment

Posted March 12th, 2010 at 1:47 pm (UTC-4)
1 comment

You get your history first in this posting. The oft-told stories of America’s development often paint an incomplete picture. Schoolkids learn how the British, French, and Dutch colonized the East Coast of North America; about the slow but steady subjugation of native tribes there and beyond the Appalachian Mountains; of Spanish missionaries’ seeding the faith […]

Tags: Posted in Uncategorized

Foreverland

Posted March 9th, 2010 at 2:20 pm (UTC-4)
Leave a comment

Is a grain of sand just a tiny rock? If so, we’re about to leave red-rock Utah, about which I’ve been writing, for the rockiest state in the Union. Nevada, largely an uninhabited, alkali wasteland pocked with gambling and golf resorts but mostly ramshackle towns built around a few gas stations, taverns, and cafés, is […]

Tags: Posted in Uncategorized

Land of the Utes — and Mormons

Posted March 5th, 2010 at 12:12 pm (UTC-4)
1 comment

Writing, as I did last posting, about Utah — an American state named after the Ute Indians, the “People of the Mountains” who once controlled that territory west of the main spine of the Rockies —brings back a vivid memory. Carol and I were interviewing and photographing at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, the state […]

Tags: Posted in Uncategorized

Color Country

Posted March 1st, 2010 at 2:06 pm (UTC-4)
1 comment

The Rocky Mountain states that I’ve been describing in this blog over the past several weeks project a breathtaking majesty when their massive, snow-covered mountains are beheld from the arid flatlands below. But while its Wasatch Range is formidable enough to have hosted the Winter Olympics eight years ago, one of those states displays an […]

Tags: Posted in Uncategorized

Rockin’ the Rockies

Posted February 24th, 2010 at 6:25 pm (UTC-4)
Leave a comment

A few weeks ago, I devoted a blog to the enchanting state of Colorado. But we must tramp that way again on our current excursion through the Endless West. So I’ll offer a few more glimpses of what seems like the “Top of the World” when you’re winding among Colorado’s “14ers” ― the 53 Rocky […]

Tags: Posted in Uncategorized

Connecting a Nation

Posted February 19th, 2010 at 11:51 am (UTC-4)
1 comment

As you’ve read in my recent posts, the American West is a crazy quilt of regions, beginning with rolling grasslands and lonely prairies and extending westward across a spine of high mountains, wasteland plateaus and wide deserts to the sea. The East had been largely settled, and fully developed cities bustled along the Pacific Coast. […]

Tags: Posted in Uncategorized

My Bison-tennial

Posted February 12th, 2010 at 5:33 pm (UTC-4)
1 comment

I’m beginning a new regimen today, aimed at increasing the frequency and reducing the length of these blogs. It’s a challenge, since I can really get cranking on these stories from across America. Quite a few foreign students of the English language have praised the extended narratives, colloquial insights, and word definitions as delicious, five-course […]

Tags: Posted in Uncategorized

The Endless West II

Posted February 8th, 2010 at 3:40 pm (UTC-4)
Leave a comment

Saddle up! We leave Texas in our dust on our trip through the vast American West. Time to head north, across the Red River into Oklahoma. Boomtown The West is full of ghost towns, once abuzz with miners, merchants, and even fancy concert halls with gas lamps and red-flocked wallpaper, then abandoned to the elements […]

Tags: Posted in Uncategorized

Sex Scandal!!

Posted December 9th, 2009 at 6:22 pm (UTC-4)
Leave a comment

Sorry, there is no juicy sex scandal that I know enough about to describe. But in these harried, information-overload times when Americans are gravitating to short, sensationalist stories, partisan rants, and celebrity gossip, I had to get your attention. Shocking J.Lo News! Don’t have that, either. Instead, I want to bring you up to date […]

Tags: Posted in Uncategorized

Ted Landphair

About

This is a far-ranging exploration of American life by a veteran Voice of America “Americana” reporter and essayist.

Ted writes about the thousands of places he has visited and written about as a broadcaster and book author. Ted Landphair’s America often showcases the work of his wife and traveling companion, renowned American photographer Carol M. Highsmith.

Ted welcomes feedback, questions, and ideas. View Ted’s profile. Watch a video about Ted and Carol by VOA’s Nico Colombant.

Photos by Carol M. Highsmith

Calendar

March 2024
M T W T F S S
« Nov    
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031