TRAVEL

A Different Kind of Spring in Washington

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – It’s a different kind of spring here in and around the great capital city of the United States. Yes, the Japanese cherry trees blossomed this year by the Jefferson Memorial and around the Tidal Basin, along with the redbuds, dogwoods and mountain…

Camping, Hiking and Boating at Kymulga Grist Mill and Covered Bridge Park

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – CHILDERSBURG, Ala. – If you find yourself traveling in Alabama looking for a hidden place to camp that is not too crowded, maybe on a fast moving stream where you can float in a canoe or kayak with lots of wildlife to see, you might…

Camping Wisdom: If Liberals Are ‘Libs’ Then Conservatives Are ‘Cons’

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – CHEROKEE ROCK VILLAGE, Ala. – If the conservative Republicans on Fox News, talk radio and social media are just going to go on and on calling liberal Democrats “libs” and talk endlessly about “sticking it to the libs” while Donald Trump and Elon Musk go…

Camping, Hiking and Rock Climbing at Cherokee Rock Village

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – CHEROKEE ROCK VILLAGE, Ala. – Always on the lookout for cool, historic and scenic places to camp these days, on a recent trip scouting new places in Alabama I ran across this gem in Cherokee County not far from Gadsden and Noccalula Falls. Cherokee Rock…

Blackberry Winter MoJo Road Update

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – PELL CITY, Ala. – We’re going through Blackberry Winter here this week and it’s not a bad thing, especially if you are camping out. Last week the afternoon high temperature reached the upper 80s, with the low at night only dropping to 70 degrees Fahrenheit.…

Don’t Let Trump Get You Down

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – MONTEVALLO, Ala. – It’s raining hard now in the campground as I work on the first cup of coffee on Sunday morning. We could lose power or internet at any moment. But I am going to try to write a little something before it goes…

Working On a New Plan Not of My Own Making: See You Down the Dusty Trail

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – MONTGOMERY, Ala. – You know me. It’s not my way to just blow smoke, make shit up and sensationalize the facts with pretension to get attention and traffic. There’s clearly no money in that anyway, in contradiction to what everyone thought about the internet in…

March from Selma to Montgomery Could Go All the Way to Washington This Year

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – SELMA, Ala. – As fate would have it, no real plan of my own, I’m encamped in an undisclosed location somewhere off the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail. On Sunday, the reenactment of that historic march will kick off once again, as it does…

Concentric Circles: Once Again on Denny Chimes Time

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – One of these days I’m going to find my way out of this concentric circle maze that seems to be my life. There has to be a secret door somewhere in the universe. What I need is a worm hole. Let’s just…

What is This ‘Swampers Sound’ and What Musicians Should be Credited on the List as ‘A Swamper?’

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“Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers And they’ve been known to pick a song or two (yes, they do) Lord, they get me off so much They pick me up when I’m feelin’ blue, now how ’bout you? “Sweet home Alabama (oh) Where the skies are so blue Sweet home Alabama Lord, I’m comin’…

Does Southern Hospitality Still Exist?

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What about Christian charity? – “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which…

Wayne Perkins: The Story of a Swamper And a Sideman

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There for the Birth of Southern Rock, he took the Muscle Shoals swampy sound to London and blended that with the Rasta island beat, creating a new sound that transformed Reggae for mainstream audiences in Europe and America. – A Draft Book Proposal in Progress By Glynn “Cowboy” Wilson – MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. – (Jan.…

From Hey Jude to Southern Rock: When Slide Guitar and a Beat from the Swamps Went Mainstream

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Outline of an Idea Emerges With First Snow of 2025 – “All of a sudden, there was Southern Rock.” – Jimmy Johnson, about the day Wilson Pickett covered the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” with Duane Allman on guitar, 1969. Tales from the MoJo Road – By Glynn “Cowboy” Wilson – ARGO, Ala. – A rare blanket…

A Curve Into Birmingham: I Will Not Back Down

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – This feels surreal, like much going on in the world these days, even without hallucinogens. Everything feels like a bizarre mix of fact and fantasy, like the world depicted by artist M.C. Escher. And apparently that’s the way it’s going to be…

Many Rivers to Cross Before I Find My Way Home

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – MARK TWAIN NATIONAL FOREST, Missouri – “How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man,” Bob Dylan once sang in another anxious time. He found the answer, “blowin’ in the wind.” How many rivers must the same man cross, before…

Clinging to the Last Vestiges of Hope for Democracy in the Mark Twain National Forest

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“How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and hard it is to undo that work again!” – Mark Twain Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – SOMEWHERE IN THE MARK TWAIN NATIONAL FOREST, Missouri – While Democrats and sane people all over the country are freaking out on social…

Consulting with Spirits at Devil’s Den After a Nightmare Election Night

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – DEVIL’S DEN, Ark. – When the news came through loud and clear and all over the New York Times front page Wednesday morning that a majority of the American people are willing to roll the dice on another crazy term for a criminal and proven…

Fear and Loathing On the Eve of Election Night 2024

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – Election Night 2024 is two days away and even 966 miles west of Washington, D.C. the tension in the air is so heavy it makes me seriously regret giving up my predilection for Xanax 20 years ago, about the time Hunter S. Thompson killed himself…

Eureka Moment: Another Kind of Farm Near the Missouri State Line

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Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – EUREKA SPRINGS, Ark. – Some writers claim to compose in their head while in the shower. That’s not my style. I mostly like short showers anyway, on the road, unless I can find a bathtub somewhere. Writing has long come easy to me. Except in…

Ode to Mark Twain: The 21st Century Feels Like A Stranger to Me

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Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – EUREKA SPRINGS, Ark. – You never know what you’re going to find until you find it. Mark Twain once said “travel is fatal to prejudice.” But prejudice is not my problem. The Bible says the love of money is the root of evil, but that’s not my problem…