The Church of the Open Road Press

Narratives about motorcycling on Northern California's back roads; Reflections on the history and geography of the North State; Memoirs and early recollections of youthful visits to towns and forests and mountaintops. Also middle-of-the-road takes on current issues in politics and education. Middle of the road? Isn't that dangerous?

Thursday, May 27, 2010

FOUR DAYS UNTIL JUNE – CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

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IT IS FOUR DAYS UNTIL JUNE and a winter storm advisory has been posted for the foothills twelve miles east of here. Snow level down to 3,00...
Wednesday, May 26, 2010

TUCKED IN AND COZY – TOURATECH WINDSCREEN SPOILER PRODUCT REVIEW

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I HAVE A HANDICAP. I’m tall. Six foot four, to be exact. Not tall and good looking. Just tall. I bump my head on the rafter inside the...
3 comments:
Thursday, May 20, 2010

ELIZABETH GILBERT on GENIUS

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ELIZABETH GILBERT speaks about genius. Genius, she says, is not embodied in a person who does something nonpareil. It is not a gift that s...
1 comment:
Wednesday, May 12, 2010

SEARCHING FOR SIMPSON CAMP - OFF MENDOCINO “FH 7”

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IN THE LATE SIXTIES, back when I was in high school, every Memorial Day Weekend, we’d journey to a place in the Coast Ranges called Simpson ...
Saturday, May 8, 2010

BEAR CROSSING – EL DORADO NATIONAL FOREST ROAD 2

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AS THE WORLD CRUMBLES under environmental disasters and Wall Street catastrophes of our own making, I escape on the BMW to get away from – o...
1 comment:
Wednesday, May 5, 2010

NOT SO FAST FOOD – A COMMON HAZARD OF DRIVING AROUND IN OR ON A CONVERSATION PIECE

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I’D GONE TO THE TACO BELL outside of Grass Valley because I knew they meant it when they said “fast food.” So after a couple of burritos, I...
Tuesday, April 27, 2010

CHARLIE AND THE WRITERS’ CONFERENCE

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[Summer, 2009] CHARLES MANSON showed up at the writers’ conference I was attending. Perhaps he, like others beholden to the bankrupt State...
Saturday, April 24, 2010

IN ATTENDANCE AT THE CHURCH OF THE OPEN ROAD: A WORK DAY WASTED

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I WAS SUPPOSED TO WORK today. Punch the clock. Of course, now, it’s my own clock. But still, I'm supposed to work. Especially if I w...
1 comment:
Monday, April 19, 2010

NO POINT A, NO POINT B – SHIRTTAIL CANYON ROAD

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YEARS AGO, following a misplaced directional sign way to hell and gone out in the woods, I ended up on a road that I hadn’t intended to take...
1 comment:
Tuesday, April 13, 2010

APRIL SHOWERS ON YANKEE JIM’S ROAD: FORESTHILL TO COLFAX

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BEYOND YANKEE JIM’S – little more than a place name now-a-days – the pavement disappears, replaced by nicely graded and securely packed grav...
1 comment:
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About Me

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Bumpa
Maps. Some of the best stories one encounters one encounters by reading a map. A map is the framework - the outline - upon which both history and fantasy are crafted. Just as two people can witness an event and come up with entirely different recollections - each completely true, verifiable and accurate - two people can travel the same mapped route and come up with entirely different stories. But without the map, perhaps they'd have no story to tell. Some of the best anthologies in my library are stuffed in my map case.
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