Model society, planned city, social reform, religious retreat–no matter the name, a number of the original thirteen colonies, as well as many, many other groups and endeavors since, sought to plan and create a better life for themselves than the one they were experiencing. Freedom from persecution, debt, famine, and oppression led many to flee to the New World, while the opportunity for property ownership, riches, and self-determination beckoned to many more. This quest to plan an ideal setting and situation has been a theme in my life for decades (the “Planner Pierce” moniker has followed me everywhere), and our…

We are not just tourists when we travel, we are tour-istas.  We always take the tour, whether it’s a free walking tour of a new city, an historic house tour, or even the host’s tour of their house.  I have been a tour guide myself in many places across the decades: I created architecture tours for schoolchildren in upstate New York and Richmond, Virginia; helped develop and give tours of a mid-20th-century house and landscape in the Hudson River Valley; started a business doing design-related field trips in the New York City area; spent over seven years as a tour…

“The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book—a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve.” –Mark Twain, former steamboat pilot, speaking about the Mississippi River Traveling from Memphis to New Orleans, we followed the Mississippi River, seeking to experience and understand the mind of the river and the influence of that great resource on America. The second longest river in the country (only the Missouri is longer), and with a basin that includes 31 states, it has had a major impact on the development of…

Memphis is about the Blues, BBQ, the ducks at the Peabody Hotel, Civil Rights history, and Elvis—and we did them all.  Beale Street, just as advertised, a party atmosphere with music pouring out of every door…we randomly picked a place and listened to four guys who delivered unrequited love (“I got my mojo working but it just don’t work on you”), downtrodden misery, and heartache.  And it felt so good. BBQ and fried catfish and tamales: check.  Rushed to the Peabody Hotel at 5 pm to watch (along with seemingly everyone else in town) the famous duckmaster direct his five…

There are two ways to visit Montgomery. You can stop at Buc-ee’s on the drive in (which we did) and marvel at the infinite line of gas pumps, the sparkling restrooms, and the rows upon rows of every snack you can imagine. You can visit the Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Museum and see the last place where the Fitzgerald family lived together (we didn’t). And you can go to the Riverfront area and dine in one of the new eateries, stay in one of the new downtown hotels, and then jump back on I-85. Or… You can go to the…