Abby and me, taking a break in the shade outside Hancock, Maryland A wave of nearly 100-degree heat hit me as soon as I opened the door of my car in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia to assemble my bike for a four-day bike-packing trip along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath with my friend Abby. […]
Two decades ago, Mirlo Beach was a thriving oceanfront community on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, located along NC-12 between Nags Head and Cape Hatteras just north of Rodanthe (the village featured in the 2008 film Nights in Rodanthe). The sand along this stretch of shore has been eroding at a rate of 14 feet per year, however, putting […]
Find the original here. Along with his broken toaster, Steve Vegdahl brought a slice of bread with him to Portland’s repair cafe one day last month. By the time he left, his toaster was working again—and the sweet smell of toasted wheat permeated the room. “This is the highlight of my day,” Vegdahl said as he […]
When a razor clam senses danger, it doesn’t hang around to see what’s going to happen, it gets the hell out. With limited resources at its disposal — no claws, teeth… limbs — this means digging with its body, and digging fast. The Oregon Coast is bursting with edibles this time of year. And while harvesting […]
My sister Laura and I hoisted on our backpacks atop 6,684-foot Mt. Mitchell — the highest point east of the Mississippi River — and lumbered 4.5 miles north along a ridge to a camping spot at Deep Gap. While the hike along the Black Mountain Crest (aka Deep Gap) trail was not horizontally challenging, we did find ourselves navigating a lot of steep […]
Photo by Millie Holloman Photography “We speak cow language here,” says Mildred Green, also known as Mrs. Moo, sitting on a cow-patterned chair in front of a black-spotted freezer containing buckets of ice cream with names like Moonilla, Peanut Udder Cup and Gooey Cowphooey. After long careers in dairy, Mildred and her husband Jim, 63 and […]
At 8:50 on Sunday morning, I stood with my bike at the starting line of the two-mile cyclocross course at Alpenrose Dairy with no idea what I was getting myself into. Curious about the sport’s appeal among local cycling enthusiasts, I’d borrowed a friend’s thick-tired single-speed and registered for a race, the first in the […]
Satya Vayu and I are sitting across from each other on floor pillows in the sparse living room of the house where he’s staying in Southeast Portland. His legs are crossed and his feet are bare, the bottoms calloused and dirty from walking around shoeless outside. He’s telling me how he’s gotten by without working […]
As Chris Chesnutt, 35, of Chattanooga ascends Little Cedar Mountain with his one-eyed pit bull, Obie, he stops periodically to admire the grooves that the wind and rain have carved into the limestone boulders strewn about the trail. Mr. Chesnutt is tall and thin, has startlingly blue eyes and wears a wool hat and an […]
To celebrate my 33rd birthday last week, my mother, sister and I convened in the region where my my mother was born and raised and my sister and I spent many summers growing up. The northern California coast, from San Francisco south to Monterey, kept us happily busy for a week straight: We kayaked in an […]
Christina Cooke is associate editor at Civil Eats, a daily news source covering the American food system, and a freelance magazine writer who writes about people, place, culture, food and agriculture systems, and social and environmental justice. She was awarded a James Beard Media Award for investigative journalism in 2023 for her work on Civil Eats’ […]
Please get in touch if you have a story idea or would like to discuss writing or editing possibilities. Email Christina at contact [at] christinacooke.com or use the form below. Look forward to hearing from you!
“Do we have to stay on guard the entire weekend, or are we allowed to take breaks?” Donnie and I wanted to ask the ranger at the Tiller Ranger Station when we stopped in to inquire about the area. We’d rented the Pickett Butte Fire Lookout Tower, a 12×12 cabin on 40-foot stilts a few […]
Few days pass during which Wayne Pernu does not buy a book, or several hundred. During the summer, he hits as many as a hundred book sales per day in and around Portland, Oregon, cramming volumes into every inch of his car, stacking them on his lap if he runs out of space