Читать книгу A Road Trip Into America's Hidden Heart - Traveling the Back Roads, Backwoods and Back Yards - John Drake Robinson - Страница 3

Love and thanks to the pair who awakened my mutant travel gene: Dad and sister Susan. A wave to six million Missourians I drove past, and to their ancestors who didn’t see me coming.

I found 32,314 stories on the road. Three storytellers showed me how to tell them: Bob Smith, Bob Carnett and Vance Heflin. Editors Mary V. Helsabeck, Rita Dallmeyer and Sarah Alban helped me sift and select and stay focused.

Thanks to local historians and researchers who keep the flame, and guides like Kaye Malins, Janeen Aggen, Angela Da Silva, Alan Peters and Maryellen McVicker.

I consulted detailed histories like Switzler’s 1889 Illustrated History of Missouri, and Walter Williams’ 1913 History of Northeast Missouri.

Thanks to the Missouri Division of Historic Preservation, storykeeper for properties on the National Historic Register, and to the State Historical Society of Missouri’s Robert L. Ramsay Missouri Place Names File. I tapped the well of three great geologists: Jerry Vineyard, Wally Howe, and Tom Beveridge’s Geologic Curiosities and Wonders of Missouri.

Cheers to the underappreciated workforce at Missouri’s Departments of Transportation, Conservation, Natural Resources, Divisions of Parks, Tourism, and the Board on Geographic Names.

Thanks to the 285 newspapers of the Missouri Press Association. Thanks to Inside Columbia Magazine, Missouri Life Magazine, and Show Me Missouri Magazine for allowing me to recount bits and pieces of my past articles from their pages.

Most important, my loving gratitude to Cheryl and our children and grandchildren for excusing my absences.

And Mom.

Erifnus thanks University Garage, her Car Spa. They think she’ll make it to 500,000 miles. I do too.