November 23, 2012
by David Ryan
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Bomb Targets in the Backcountry

The last blog post covered some of the surprises that you can find while wandering in the backcountry. One of those surprises was part of a fuselage from a fighter plane that the Air Force uses for night rescue training. But the fuselage is not the only thing you can find with a military twist in the backcountry.

In the book The Gentle Art of Wandering I mentioned using Google Earth to solve a mystery regarding metal debris that we found in the New Mexico backcountry. When we looked at the area where we found the metal in Google Earth we saw the remains of a bomb target built during World War II. The pieces of metal were fragments from bombs dropped on the target.

Look carefully at the Google Earth image below and you can see the rings from the bomb target. The target is about a thousand feet wide.

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November 8, 2012
by David Ryan
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Wandering in the Backcountry

When I started working on The Gentle Art of Wandering almost three years ago I thought that it would be a book on how to explore the backcountry. But very soon into the project I realized that seeing and wandering were more important and changed the focus of the book to show how you can wander anywhere.

With that being said, the backcountry is still a great place to wander and has many surprises out there waiting for you to find. I have mentioned finding prehistoric archaeological sites in the book and in several posts in this blog. But there is much more for you to find. Here is a sample of what’s waiting for you.

On top of a mesa in the middle of the badlands west of Cuba, New Mexico, you can find a set of unexplained cairns. Nobody knows if they were made by Native Americans, sheep operations, or ranchers or their purpose. But if you make the effort to hike there you’ll the cairns, an amazing landscape, and many other surprises.

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October 25, 2012
by David Ryan
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Wandering Along US Highway 41 on Tennessee’s Highland Rim

As mentioned in The Gentle Art of Wandering, the mindset of wandering is not just for walking; it even applies to driving. Using the mindset of wandering can make any drive interesting and open you up to a wide range of experiences.

For example I can use a drive of less than 60 miles that I took along US Highway 41 on the Highland Rim in Tennessee to show you an amazing wandering experience. (If you read the previous blog post about waterfalls in Middle Tennessee you know that the Highland Rim is a limestone escarpment coming off the Cumberland Plateau.)

US Highway 41 begins at the northern most tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and ends 2000 miles later in Miami, Florida by way of Chicago, Nashville, Atlanta and Tampa. Like many numbered US highways, US 41 has been eclipsed by Interstate highways for much of its route. Interstate 24 has taken that role in Tennessee.

US Highway 41 leaves the Middle Tennessee Basin and climbs onto the Highland Rim a few miles south of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. This is the same route that the Union Army used in June 1863 to get around the Confederate Army during the Tullahoma Campaign of June and July 1863.

The entry point to the Highland Rim for US 41 is at Hoover’s Gap in Beech Grove, Tennessee. One of the opening engagements of the Tullahoma Campaign was fought here.

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