Journal

Leadville, Adventure, and Gratitude

Leadville, Adventure, and Gratitude

How fortunate I am to have this life. There are many difficulties, and downsides. I won’t enumerate them. But the upside is amazing and purely good. I get to do things like this and call it work. I get to read for a living. I can turn my adventures into stories.

Traveling with Each of My Characters

Traveling with Each of My Characters

All hail Jefferson for the patience and persistence he showed in vindicating the American experiment, and letting Napoleon suggest the purchase as a way of solving some of his own pressing problems. Jefferson could not have done what I am doing. He was too civilized. I wonder how often he bathed? We know he had severe digestive problems. That had to be a mess in an age before toilets and ready hot water. You want to have robust pipes for a journey like this.

I Know the Path Well Enough

I Know the Path Well Enough

Sundays always remind me of my father Charles Everett Jenkinson. He has been dead for a quarter of a century now, but on Sundays I often miss him acutely. But he would never come on such a trip, not for all the money in the world. He thought camping was very silly: why jettison ten thousand years of improvements in comfort to sleep under a tree?

The Rig Under a Billion Stars

The Rig Under a Billion Stars

When I stepped out, all I saw was a billion stars above the pine trees. That alone made the trip satisfying. There are few sounds more satisfying than a breeze in pine trees. It is a different sound from breeze in cottonwoods. They thwattle and click, because the dance of the leaves makes them bump into each other.

#1279 The Art of the Letter

#1279 The Art of the Letter

"Every letter has a basis and a purpose … I spent an enormous amount of time thinking about the recipient."

— Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson

We speak this week with President Jefferson about the art of letter writing. Prompted by a letter from a listener, Jefferson shares his insights on the process. The exact number of letters Jefferson wrote is not known, but it is safe to say he wrote in excess of 20,000.