‘If one happened to wake, suddenly, in the lobby of ‘The Casserole Palace,’ one might be forgiven for thinking they had drunkenly stumbled into a geological museum and not a tribute to the hot dish. It’s an easy mistake to make. You see, faced with the problem of displaying something that tends to ruin after a day at room temperature, ‘The Casserole Palace’ has preserved their subjects in two relatively novel ways:

Historical casseroles, of which there are only eleven, have been completely dried out and are sat, like mummies, on a little shelf in a climate controlled room. If it weren’t for the context, nobody would believe this collection of dust ever passed as food.

Examples of more modern renditions, on the other hand, are preserved in thick glass cylinders to better display their layers. These are core samples of casseroles prepared on a massive scale. Nobody knows what kitchen it outfitted to make them and nobody knows where the rest of each dish goes but don’t let the mysteries distract you. The tubes are not particularly aesthetic on their own but, together, they form a hardy sort of rainbow- a celebration of food in a diversity of beige.’

I’m not sure anybody loves casseroles as a category of food, but I think everybody loves a casserole. And it’s been a while, you know. I’ve been traveling for a long time and casseroles are not the sort of thing you buy in the store or make in a motel room or cook over a fire or even order at a restaurant.

So, yes, I spend fifty dollars to eat at ‘The Casserole Palace’s’ buffet and, in addition to a pretty passable chicken-broccoli I inadvertently gain access to something wholly horrifying: their mix-and-match casserole machine. Take the overall concept of a frozen yogurt place but strip away the decency until it’s something more like the soda fountain at a rundown gas station. Imagine spigots thick enough to release chunky soups and pans that range from personal-sized to unwieldy. End it with a conveyor belt and an industrial oven. That’s the mix-and-match casserole machine. A thing that should not exist.

A laminated guide near the start of this monstrosity politely suggests that customers limit themselves to three layers and two topping for any one pass-through. Seeing that it’s widely ignored, I do what any man, drunk on home cooking, would do in my position. I create the suicide casserole: a thin spray of every layer, a small handful of every topping. It comes out looking like any casserole, really. The upper layer, thick with cheese, resists cutting. When I finally make a mark, hot liquid from inside pools up and congeals in the air. The surface heals itself before a minute has passed. I start again.

I manage a few bites but, like any food built for fun, it isn’t very good. I pack the rest and carry it with me, telling myself that I’ll work my way through it until the dairy fillings spoil.

I don’t.

I dump it off the side of the highway, telling myself, instead, that some animal may still choose to eat it so that I feel less guilty about the waste. It oozes off the shoulder, a motley roadkill returning to the earth.

-traveler

‘The prepper community doesn’t have the most welcoming reputation taken altogether, but an enclave in the hills of West Virginia is the exception that makes the rule. ‘The Folks with the Right Idea’ (commonly shortened to ‘The Right Idea’) exist on the opposite end of the welcoming spectrum, clocking in at something that might be considered too hospitable or, perhaps, virulently friendly. You see, ‘The Right Idea’ maintains about as low a profile as any off-the-grid group might be expected to but a traveler that happens past their gate will find a small, curated visitor’s center that outlines their philosophies, their goals, and, most importantly, the concerns that have driven them to longstanding bunkers.

That’s the theory anyway.

You see, the trouble with ‘The Right Idea’ is that their idea is so seemingly right, that anybody who spends more than half an hour perusing the literature in their visitor’s center is convinced to join them.

It would be easy to write this off as some sort of cult-like compelled initiation. Surely there is some drug in the water of the visitor’s center. Surely there is some forceful coercion. In fact, there is little evidence for either. Satellite images suggest the enclave itself is many miles away from the center and stakeouts have revealed it isn’t a manned facility, though it is visited in the evenings by a maintenance crew. As though to drive the point home, ‘The Right Idea’ has broken their inconspicuous online presence to set up a streaming webcam in the center, clear enough to maintain their integrity but not so focused as to broadcast any of their material. To date, there have been no signs of foul play.

The real intriguing aspect of ‘The Right Idea’ is not that it converts people on the spot- in fact, it tends to lie dormant, and because ‘The Right Idea’ has been around in some form or another since the 1970’s, it’s been known to lie dormant for as long as forty years. People that visited the center in their thirties live their lives and then retire to the bunker, having never crossed back into West Virginia in the meantime. ‘The Right Idea’ sticks with them through the decades.

There is potentially a lot to be concerned with, here, but the only really quantifiable concern is that, on average, the time between a person encountering ‘The Right Idea’ and their pilgrimage to the enclave is shortening. Whatever force or argument that compels an initiate to join has become insistent past 2013 or so and downright urgent in the 2020s.

Use caution when approaching ‘The Right Idea,’ reader. Consider it a one-way street.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

I’m not superstitious about much. Most of the tics I’ve picked up on this journey reflect very rational fears- they’re survival mechanisms, really, that sometimes misfire for being necessarily hair-triggered. Actual superstitions, though- I can count those on one hand.  

The biggest has to do with my name- you might have noticed its absence. That’s not just good internet hygiene. That’s the real me. The me that gives false names at coffee shops to avoid hearing his own called out over the counter. The me that has used so many nicknames that even his old friends (and there are few now) would be hard-pressed to remember the root.

Why?

I don’t like people saying it, that’s all. I don’t like to think of my name in the hot air of other lungs. I don’t like the way it looks on lips and tongues. To hear my name in somebody else’s mouth is like feeling my fingers down their throat except I don’t mind that nearly as much. It’s like my fingers down their throat and then those same fingers straight into mine.

I like my name. I don’t mind saying it myself. I don’t mind whispering it to Hector, who is unlikely to repeat it. I don’t even mind seeing it written out, except that it greatly increases the chances that someone will read it aloud.

I’m also firmly in the ‘leave no trace’ crowd so you might imagine my surprise when I find myself carving my name into the trunk of a tree with my pocket knife. It’s hardly visible, for the all the hundreds of names that have come before it. But it’s there.

‘There is a short path at the end of Forest Road 4- a five-minute walk to a behemoth eyesore called ‘The Tortured Tree.’ It’s a pine tree, though it’s difficult to tell that now. Most of the branches have been torn from the trunk. Some hang loosely near the top and seem to retain needles enough for it to survive. ‘The Tortured Tree’ has been stripped of bark up to about fifteen feet. It weeps sap from the exposed wood, giving it something of a rubbery varnish where insects have not yet collected.

This devastation has been wrought by the relentless tendency of visitors to carve their names into the trunk, though ‘tendency’ might not be the right word. Those that speak of the experience describe a compulsion. Even those that have arrived with the intention of protecting the tree have lent their pocket knives to tourists or given in to the very behavior they came to prevent. Sensitive visitors report a feeling like justice as they carve letters. It isn’t as though the tree wants the names, it’s as though some outside intelligence wants the tree harmed.

 ‘The Tortured Tree’ falls within state jurisdiction, but rangers have been slow to respond to the vandalism. Off the record, they’ve suggested that protecting the one tree will only cause would-be vandals to target the otherwise pristine environment around it. The warnings they have issued are notably weak, never actually condemning the tradition but encouraging visitors to ‘be cool’ and to ‘do what feels right.’’

It seems a shame not to finish my name once I’ve started it. It seems impossible not to finish, really. Luckily, once the deed has been done, I feel a psychic pressure lifted and I’m able to hack the letters away again.

If someone speaks my name in the forest and I’m not around to hear it, would it still be intimate and vulgar? Probably not, but I’ll sleep easier knowing it won’t happen.

I look down and see Hector has shaved some wood from the tree himself.

“Is that your name, little buddy?” I ask, and he pees in the dirt, thinking it over.

I’ve got everything packed up to go before I rush back to the tree and really make sure my name is gone. I start on Hector’s and make sure that’s gone too. I feel better after that- actually better. I do.

Maybe I’ve gathered more tics than I thought. Can’t be helped. The Wayside is positively infested with them.

-traveler

‘Given the proliferation of palm, tarot, and tea leaf readers along the Wayside, one might suspect that the market for divination has reached a saturation point. That suspicion would be half correct. In his recently published memoirs, ‘Shoulda’ Seen That Coming,’ famed seer Elroy Mikkel bemoans the current state of roadside divination, claiming that camaraderie and professionalism have all but given way to one-upmanship- each practitioner stooping to new levels of degeneracy as they attempt to outdo their peers. This modern vulgarity usually involves the addition of wildly explicit details to otherwise mundane predictions, though, in other cases, it manifests as ritual steps that Mikkel claims are ‘extraneous’ and ‘showy:’ smoke machines, sprays of blood, and holographic spirits.

Amidst this doom and gloom, Mikkel is careful to cite ‘Water Ways’ as an exemplar- a member of the community that has recognized the difficult market and, in adapting to it, has risen above the riff-raff. You see, ‘Water Ways’ has chosen bathwater as their medium of choice and in doing so it has effectively reached an audience outside the normal parameters for this sort of business: the soft skeptics.

Soft skeptics have no real interest in divination but can be tempted by a quirky boutique spa that advertises on social and just so happens to provide a little bespoke advice based on the staining of a customer’s drained tub. If that isn’t enough, ‘Water Ways’ has recently added something like a bath buffet consisting of fresh herbs and colorful scented powders. This allows customers to tailor their bath time detritus for increased relaxation and trendy feet-in-bathtub picture taking.

Be aware: the heart of ‘Water Ways’ remains in the business of divination. More than a few one-star reviews suggest perfectly good soaks have been spoiled by calamitous predictions, foretold by bath bombs and flower petals in the drained basins of aesthetic claw-foot tubs.’

I’m not usually one to complain about a refund but when the man at the front of ‘Water Ways’ hands me my money back at the end of the bath, I realize it’s in my best interest to question the subtext of the exchange.

“We’ve got nothing to tell you,” the man shrugs. “No fortune, no fee.”

“What does that mean, though?” I ask. “Like, me learning about my fate is something I need to do myself without the assistance of psychics? Like I need to go into this journey blind?”

“Nope.”

“Like, whatever you saw in there was so bad you can’t bring yourself to talk about it?”

“Nope. We see bad stuff all the time. Her over there:” he points his chin at a woman in the waiting room and shakes his head. “Fucked up.”

“So, like…”

“Look, man. You just didn’t leave anything to read. Bottom of that tub is squeaky clean.”

I’ve ridden a motorcycle across the country unendingly for years. I sleep in a tent next to a rabbit. I go weeks without a shower and when I do clean myself it’s normally in the stall of some truckstop bathroom. I look down at my clothes- at my skin- and, in doing so, I invite the man to do the same.

“You’re saying I’m too clean?”

“Nope,” he says. “Not by the looks of you. I’m saying whatever fortune you carry is stuck so good that it’s not washing off in the bath.”

-traveler

My jacket makes up about 20% of the bulk of my backpack. It’s heavy and old and the outer is a shell of weather-resistant material that squirms under pressure, making it nearly impossible to use as a pillow. It’s a waste of space, most days. It’s been autumn for years and, though I occasionally wake to find frost on my tent, it hasn’t been cold- cold enough for the jacket- in a long time. I carry it anyway, for days like today.

‘With a name like ‘The Minnesota Snowglobe,’ a traveling family might be forgiven for expecting an amount of whimsy at this wintery roadside attraction. That is not the case. ‘The Minnesota Snowglobe’ is a hemispherical prison north of the twin cities and its only permanent resident is a captive storm. And not just any storm. ‘The Minnesota Snowglobe’ claims to house the last winds of the Children’s Blizzard of 1888, infamous for the death of children on their walk back from school. If that snippet of history isn’t enough to turn a curious family away, the sound of the storm raging inside is warning enough that this is not a casual stopover.

The blizzard roils inside the half-orb structure, loud enough that employees at the ticket stand wear earplugs and occasionally sue for the peculiar psychological effects of long-term exposure to high-decibel white noise. The Children’s Blizzard is angry- why wouldn’t it be? It has been kept alive too long, churning the same snow and blowing the same air in perpetuity. ‘The Minnesota Snowglobe’ claims to manage this effect via industrial fans and coolant networks but there is no evidence that these systems exist. The enterprise operates on a small diesel generator, enough to power the ticket booth and not much else. Skeptics have mapped the facility and, barring some off-record space underground, have concluded that there is simply not room for the machinery ‘The Minnesota Snowglobe’ claims to own. The same skeptics insist that the storm is alive, biding its time until it can kill again.

Travelers would be wise to come to their own conclusions.’

I leave Hector at the front. He has sweaters and jackets and I’m sure I could insulate his little traveling kennel so that he would be warmer than me carrying it but there’s the noise to think about, the howling, and there’s the risk of his escape- the risk of frozen ear tips and blackened rabbits paws. He’s had enough unseasonable weather for one lifetime, so I go in alone.

The entrance to ‘The Minnesota Snowglobe’ consists of a complicated series of airlocks to keep the circulating storm inside. Six sliding doors and two long hallways later, I enter the central chamber of the dome structure and am nearly blown over by wind and ice. The blizzard rages at me for several minutes and I am blinded, kept flat against the sealed door behind me and eventually huddled on the ground. Just as I think to call for help, the wind subsides, some, and I spy the cabin at the center of ‘The Snowglobe.’ I struggle to my feet and brave the icy open space that separates us.

The cabin is the only respite offered within the dome. It’s unheated and hardly insulated, but it provides some relief from the wind and, when I arrive, is already warmed by five other visitors: an out-of-sorts looking family. They turn to me as I stumble inside and watch as I struggle to close the door against the wind.

“Rough weather,” I say when it’s done.

Nobody laughs. They look like they’ve been arguing. The youngest kid’s face is streaked with tears. The oldest has her arms crossed. Their parents look embarrassed. We exchange the barest of pleasantries before one of the men changes his tone to that peculiar condescension that fathers use when they’re asking a stupid question on behalf of a child.

“You didn’t see a cat out there, did you?”

“Uh, no,” I tell him, “Did you bring a cat?”

He ignores me, turning to the youngest instead: “See? No cat.”

“It’s out there!” the kid cries, “I saw it!”

The dads go back to looking embarrassed. The daughter crosses her arms tighter. I make things worse by suggesting that a cat wouldn’t last long in the snow and we’re all quiet until, several minutes later, the kid shouts and points out into the snow.

“There!”

The family doesn’t react but I give the kid the benefit of the doubt and see it just in time- not a cat: a rabbit. Hector. It was stupid to leave him behind, stupid to think he’d be safe with a bunch of underpaid teenagers. I’m out of the cabin and back into the storm in an instant but Hector is quick when he wants to be. He leaps toward the edge of the dome and skirts the wall, disappearing in gusts of wind and reappearing out of the snow, always just on the edge of my vision. I call his name but the wind drowns out my voice. Every time I make headway, the wind picks up and knocks me to the ground.

Finally, I manage to corral him toward an exit. He scurries inside, heavy or warm enough to activate the sliding door. It’s nearly sealed by the time I reach it so I break the glass on the emergency escape and pull the latch. I do the same on the second door and the third, hoping that one of the airlocks ahead will hesitate just long enough to allow me to catch him.

It isn’t until I’m halfway through opening the last airlock that I realize the wind is still with me, that it plays with shadow and snow in a way that looks much like a rabbit, but isn’t one at all. It’s too late. The airlock slides open and the Children’s Blizzard escapes out into autumn, leaving a trail of frost. The family joins me a few minutes later. The youngest prods my arm.

“Did you catch him?”

The staff of ‘The Minnesota Snowglobe’ have their hands full- full enough that they don’t notice me picking Hector up from behind the counter and disappearing back out onto the road. They aren’t getting paid enough to care.

-traveler