Author Archives

Cosmo and Silvia visit their younger brother Vince in Berkeley, where he attends college. Named after the 18th Century bishop and philosopher, George Berkeley, this university town has long been a major center of social change and civic unrest.

Silvia and Cosmo visit one of Silvia’s friends in the lovely coastal town of Santa Cruz. Situated about 90 miles south of San Francisco, Santa Cruz is home to both a major university and a boardwalk filled with restaurants, shops and an

Silvia’s car breaks down, forcing the traveling siblings to find an auto body shop. Luckily, this happens as they are near the city of Bakersfield, a freeway-filled place with no shortage of automobile services. About a hundred miles north

After their visit to the Grand Canyon, Silvia and Cosmo head down to Flagstaff. Established in 1882 as a railroad stop, today this lovely little city has a population of just over 67,000 and is home to Northern Arizona University, Lowell

There aren’t many places in the world as sacred as the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. Situated in the Northeastern part of the state and completely surrounded by a much larger Navajo reservation, Hopi was settled in circa 1100 making it the

Cosmo and Silvia stop in Gallup, New Mexico after a day of driving for dinner. Founded in 1881 as a railhead for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, today Gallup is the most populous city between Albuquerque and Flagstaff, and about one-third of

Cosmo and Silvia stop in a town just west of Albuquerque which is modeled after Tucamcari, New Mexico. Named after the mountain that is situated near this small city, it has a charm of its own with a number of vintage styled hotels and

Soon after Cosmo and Silvia cross the border into Texas, they stumble upon an unusual sight- a 190 foot-tall free-standing cross.  The cross lives in Groom, Texas, a small town with a population below 600 in the panhandle region of Texas- the

Cosmo and Silvia make it to the western most edge of Oklahoma and stay in a motel near Texola, Oklahoma for the third night of their journey. This nearly abandoned ghost town sits on the Oklahoma-Texas border.  This town dates back to the

On the second night of their journey, Silvia and Cosmo make it to Memphis, Tennessee, where Silvia has a friend, Clay, who is Blues musician. When he tells Cosmo that he moved there to study the Blues, Cosmo assumes that he is attending a school