Common Time VT: The American Celebration on Parade: Photos from the Summer of 2012

"The American Celebration on Parade" was a month-long road trip across these United States, for both business and pleasure. Destinations included the Aspen Ideas Festival, and my penultimate eight-day residency, within Union Institute and University's Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies program, which took place in Cincinnati, Ohio. Along the way, my partner, Jennie Harriman, and I visited family in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kansas, and finally Vermont.

"The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are." --Samuel Johnson

"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move." --Robert Louis Stevenson

Becoming Fame-Us in western Pennsylvania; there was a Moe's Southwestern Grill next door.

Big Oil bears its teeth! Outside of a station in northern Virginia.

Sauntering through the neighborhoods of Cincinnati, Ohio.

WPWA 1590AM (Aston, Pennsylvania), formerly WCZN-- "Your Country Cousin."

Hillside Motel, near Skyline Drive, Virginia-- too rainy to live it up by the pool.

Wandering the streets of Lexington, Virginia.

Beside a gas station, somewhere in southern Virginia.

Discovering who the "Invaders in the Circle of Life" are, while exploring Cade's Cove, within the Smoky Mountains National Park.

"The journey, not the arrival, matters." -- T.S. Eliot

Nesting, among and upon systems of public address!

New business coming soon, near Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

While getting an AC recharge at a Subaru specialist near Kodak, Tennessee.

Not just Good, but MEGA.

The facades surrounding Dollywood.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, near the TN/NC line.

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." --Lao Tzu

At the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, in Cherokee, NC.

Tennessee Flea Market.

"Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life." --Jack Kerouac

Official radiation device of the American Celebration on Parade.

Stopped in Asheville long enough for a gelato, and to take a photo of this sticker.

Staying calm in western TN, with a fine Pennsylvania lager and a black widow spider.

Official off-world exploration team of The American Celebration on Parade (Michael Shanks substitution).

In the rear-view mirror, an antique economy of videotape!

"A place where even squares can have a ball..."

Former telethon king and legend Jerry Lewis was to appear at the Firelake Casino.

The lavishly industrial and creative Oklahoma City home of Wayne Coyne, ringmaster of the Flaming Lips.

Fine dining in western Oklahoma.

Imagine peanut butter and chocolate pudding in a blender, and turned into a pie.

Shamrock, Texas storefront.

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." -- Martin Buber

Near XIT, the mammoth cattle ranch established in north Texas in the early 1900s.

100 years ago in Dalhart, Texas...

My neck of the woods.

After the WWII base was closed, the local sheriff's department was given this real Tommy gun.

Dallam County Sheriff "Dick" Stout.

Brief moments in New Mexico.

Backstage at the Fox Theater in Trinidad, Colorado.

[see separate posting in this blog, for more on the Fox Theater of Trinidad]

"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." --Henry Miller

Continuing west, driving into the sunset, and into the Rockies.

“When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” --D.H. Lawrence

Crossing Independence Pass around midnight!

Moon photography at 12,000 feet, featuring unknown green dot (?).

Awake and alive in Aspen.

[see a separate posting on this blog, for more on the Aspen Ideas Festival]

"To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world." --Freya Stark

Aspen Institute chairs, perhaps formerly located in the library at Vermont Tech?

David Gergen and Robert Putnam, the latter being one of my new heroes, for his theories on the investment within social capital ("Bowling Alone" is a good read).

It's a Dog's Life in Aspen, among the economic 1%.

Fanciful residential gateway reminded me more of an anarchy symbol than "A is for Aspen."

Freshly installed bomb shelter (?) in the front yard.

Teaching capitalism to children on a Saturday morning in Aspen, lemonade stand prices range from $1 to $5/glass.

Rocky Mountain High.

Rocky Mountain Way.

Back across Independence Pass.

"Travel is glamorous only in retrospect." --Paul Theroux


Having turned east, more moments on the road, with the Rockies at my back.

Lunch with my Dad, in Lawrence, Kansas!

Throwbacks to another time, through reviewing photos at my sister's condo in Kansas.

My grandfather Stanley C. Bentley, relaxed in the late 1950s.

Abandoned Lincoln Town Car limo, behind an aspiring Missouri winery.

Breakfast on the Fourth of July!

With my sister, Elizabeth Smith, in Overland Park, Kansas.

With my sister Jessica Smith, at the Episcopal General Convention in Indianapolis.

Seersucker suits, on the floor of the House of Deputies, at the Episcopal General Convention.

Tedium in Cincinnati: PhD residency.

Extensive banner-like poetry seeks interdisciplinary understanding.

Beside a nightclub in Sharonville, Ohio.

Ye who never left his neighborhood, of Clifton, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Leg-oriented statue in downtown Indianapolis.

My sister Jessica, with massive onion rings.

Interdisciplinary campus, Cincinnati.

Corporate light fixtures, Kingsgate Marriott.

Putting the "gate" in Kingsgate, Cincinnati.

"Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey." --Pat Conroy