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A $500 loan, a broken-down bus, and a mystery country star.
Leslie Sisson shares the unbelievable story of how her father ended up with a 1950s Gibson Country Western guitar as collateral for a roadside favor. It took years for the family to find out exactly whose hands had played it—and the answer is a piece of country music history.
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Desert barons, high-altitude comedy, and a rock & roll wizard.
Seth Morris recounts meeting an "elegant desert baron" during a cross-country bike trip, while Brian Soika shares how a chance meeting with Wayne Coyne led to a fiery national television segment and a legendary band photo.
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A gold-leafed king's suite and a midnight rocket launch.
Parker Brooks describes the surreal architecture of Berlin’s most famous artist hotel, while Aaron Kyle reflects on the grueling peaks and unbridled joys of a decade spent in a tour van.
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A breakdown in a rural warehouse and a tour with a legend.
Keith Waggoner recounts being stranded in a small-town warehouse with a questionable mechanic, while Adeline Dante shares a memorable and innocent encounter with Daniel Johnston during her first national tour.
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A stomach-churning burger joint in Alabama and a last-minute gamble at the Canadian border.
Andy Creighton tells a stomach-churning story about a roadside burger joint in rural Alabama that made a bold claim and delivered something nobody ordered. Then Thomas Sutherland reveals the improvised trick that saved a 30-day international tour from complete collapse at the Canadian border.
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A documentary filmmaker, a desert, an edible, and a clown who couldn't tell what was real anymore.
John Gilkey, award-winning circus performer and Cirque du Soleil veteran, shares the story of a film student who tracked him down in the Arizona desert to make a documentary — and what happened when John's own philosophy of blurring reality came back to bite him in the ass.
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A secret parking spot in Chicago and a rock and roll cover-up 19 years in the making.
Ian Lee, drummer, songwriter, and tour bus company owner, shares two stories from life behind the wheel. The first is a tale of unexpected human connection forged in a sketchy industrial corner of Chicago. The second involves the Dave Matthews Band, 800 pounds of waste, and a tip from someone who claims to know what really happened on that bridge.
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A child actor on set in Spain and a coffee hunter in the mountains of Yemen.
Daryl Sabara reflects on what it was like to grow up on the road as a young actor — the wonder, the loneliness, and the grief of missing ordinary life. Then Chris Jordan takes us to the remote farms of Ethiopia and Yemen where he's spent years building relationships with the people who grow some of the world's most extraordinary coffee.
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A cinematic nightmare in West Texas and a freezing spring race through Europe.
James Ease shares the story of a West Texas road trip that felt like it was following a pre-written script, while Jeff Smith details a harrowing tour through a cold European spring that ended in a literal run for the boarding gate at Schiphol.