American Tales & Trails

  THE ROCK EAGLE - Putnam County, Georgia “Tread Softly here White Man – For long ere you came, Strange races lived, fought and loved” Ancient Effigy, the "Rock Eagle" - Putnam County, Georgia - JDJ Photo All across this great country of ours, there are footprints and echoes of the past that have been forgotten or have been hidden from the greater consciousness for hundreds and even thousands of years. Often times these ruins or relics are obscured by heavy vegetation consisting of thick hardwood forests. Eastern Georgia is covered by such forests and the Oconee National Forest in particular covers over 867,000 acres from the rolling hills of the Piedmont to the southern Appalachian Mountain in that state. Oconee has a Creek / Cherokee origin, and it means “Land Beside Water”. In this forest, about an hour east of Atlanta, there is a very mysterious object that lies beneath the trees as it has for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. This object is the Rock Eagle. The Rock E...

  SHINLGLE CREEK TRAIL WESTERN UINTA MOUNTAINS, UTAH “I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees ” Henry David Thoreau   Hiker snow shoeing up the Shingle Creek Drainage - Western Uinta Mountains, Utah - JDJ Photo East of Salt Lake City, Utah in the north east corner of the State lie the mighty Uinta Mountains. This range is peculiar because it runs east to west rather than the north to south orientation of the Wasatch and the Great Basin Ranges. There are two National Forests on the range – The Wasatch-Cache National Forest and the Ashley National Forest which was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908. The Uinta Mountains contain over 1,000 lakes, 500 of which support game fish. There are 400 miles of streams and these mountains contain the largest wilderness area in Utah, the High Uintas Primitive Area – a vast contiguous 460,000-acre roadless area. The peak contains dozens of high peaks that rise above the tree line and a handful tha...

  THE PALI ROAD & THE LEGEND OF THE MENEHUNE OAHU, HAWAII “Traveling - it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a Story Teller” Ibn Battuta View from the Pali Overlook. According to legend, this is the cliff that Kamehameha and his army forced the Oahu warriors over during the battle of Nu'uanu - JDJ Photo While in Hawaii I had the opportunity to travel Hawaii Route 61 which is better known as the PALI Highway and did so sort of by accident. I had a few hours to kill before my flight so I took a drive around the back side of the Island from Honolulu past Koko Head, admiring the rocky black coast with waves smashing into the lava shore and listening to 93.1 Da Paina which is a local Honolulu radio station that plays a blend of Hawaiian Reggae and traditional Reggae. I was running short on time so I looked at the map and decided to take a shortcut and follow Route 61 back over the impossible looking Koolau range to downtown Honolulu and then the air...

The Great Swamp Fight – Rhode Island “May the stars carry your sadness away, may the flowers fill your heart with beauty, may hope forever wipe away your tears, and above all, may silence make you strong” Chief Dan George Site of the Great Swamp Fight - Rhode Island - JDJ Photo Numerous occurrences have played out over the centuries across what is now the United States that have resulted in the political geography we see today. Some like the battle of Gettysburg, or the California Gold Rush are well known, others, that were possibly just as consequential in their time and location are all but forgotten. Rhode Island is a fascinating, tiny State that has as much coastline as the rest of the eastern seaboard combined. While living in Massachusetts, I had to good fortune to visit this State several times and learn a little bit about its history. While doing some research before one such visit, I came across a pair of crossed sabers on an old map that was labeled “The Great Swamp Fig...

  BEAR RIVER SMITH – Abilene, Kansas   Are you the great Tom Smith who claims to be a fighter? “I’m your Huckleberry”   Thomas “Bear River” Smith On my way to Fort Riley one evening, I decided to jump off of Interstate 70 at Abilene, Kansas. I had read much about Abilene in the days of the Old West when over 400,000 head of cattle shipped east to Kansas City and Chicago from the end of the Chisholm Trail. The Railroad, giant stockyards, and hundreds, possibly thousands of cowboys who just got paid more money than they had seen in a year, made for an explosive situation. This is where the word “Cow Town” came from. Many people who study the old west and the lawmen who tamed it, certainly associate Abilene with “Wild Bill” Hickok and I am no exception. In fact, the story of that legendary lawman is what prompted me to get off the highway and look around. Because it was evening everything was closed and on my short walk around so called down town, I was disappointed ...