New Orleans Road Trip #2 — Travel Made Personal Some places welcome you with neon signs and polished brochures.Others?They wait on the porch with a knowing smile, letting the creak of an old hinge tell the first chapter for you. The Canal Street Inn is the latter. Built in 1912 and still standing tall on … Read more
There are days on a road trip when the universe hands you iron, fire, and history… and then follows it up with something delightfully weird just to keep you on your toes. Orr Park was exactly that. We’d already spent the day weaving through Alabama’s industrial past — places like the rugged remains of Sloss … Read more
TMP Covert Ops #10 | Stories stolen between meetings Hidden in the Woods, Written in Stone Just twenty miles upriver from Washington, D.C., a forest hides the skeleton of an empire.Tucked between the towpath of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal and the Potomac’s slow bend, the Seneca Quarry Ruins sleep beneath vines and sycamores.I parked … Read more
New Orleans Road Trip #1 – TMP Origins A Stop We Almost Skipped By the time we reached the National WWII Museum, our New Orleans trip was almost over. We’d spent the night before at the haunted Cornstalk Hotel, where antique charm met ghostly legends and laughter echoed through the hallways. We were tired, emotional, … Read more
Stories stolen between meetings. The Detour That Wasn’t a Mistake I wasn’t supposed to stop here.This wasn’t on the mission list. I was chasing the ruins of Seneca Quarry—and Murph, ever the chaos gremlin, rerouted my GPS straight toward a safer parking area. I rolled in expecting nothing more than a quick walk through the … Read more
They didn’t just steal the papers.No—Florida’s never been one for subtle crimes. In 1891, under a moonless sky, a gang of Inverness men rolled into Mannfield, Florida, and stole the entire courthouse—records, furniture, clerk, and all. By sunrise, the county seat was gone, and Mannfield’s heart went with it. Today, little remains of this ambitious … Read more
Alabama Road Trip #2 Somewhere off the backroads of Bibb County, Alabama, the woods still breathe heat. You can almost feel it rising from the ground — the faint ghost of a fire that burned for four decades and forged an empire. When Dusty and I pulled into West Blocton Coke Ovens Park, we didn’t … Read more
They say you can still hear the hammers ringing at Sloss Furnaces, echoing through the smoke and iron that built Birmingham’s name. But when Dusty and I first tried to visit, the only sound we heard was Murph laughing in the distance. Round One: When Murph Closed the Gates This stop was supposed to be … Read more
Alabama Road Trip #2 There’s something about ruins that pull you in—the way time folds itself around stone and iron, how silence can still hum with memory. We hadn’t planned on finding Brierfield. It was one of those “Murph detours” that started with a roadside sign for the Absalom Pratt House and ended with Dusty … Read more
They say some stories don’t find you until you’re ready to hear them.For me, that story began under the canopy of Withlacoochee pines—where time, moss, and memory have buried a town called Oriole. It took three separate hikes to find it.The first, I wandered alone through the brush, chasing rumors of old chimneys and whispers … Read more