Airstream Country

A herd of bison standing in the snow. Layered bluffs of multicolored sandstone. A silver Airstream trailer on a mountain highway. These are familiar sights for Neil Mathison and his wife, Susan. Newly retired, their son in college, they embark upon a great American road trip “uncoupled from the tyranny of calendars or a specific journey.” Airstream Country recounts their travels across the western United States as they move from Montana to Malibu and Seattle to Silverton, winding their way through millions of years of geological history with their Airstream in tow. Along the way they encounter upheavals and depositions, ancient seas and young mountains, and stone towers and striated canyons, which are all illuminated by Mathison’s knowledgeable commentary. Even after thousands of miles and eons of geology, their adventures are never finished, for, as Mathison writes, “We learn by travel where we ought to travel more.”

Neil Mathison is a former naval officer, nuclear engineer, expatriate businessman, and stay-at-home-dad. He has published essays and short stories in the Georgia Review, the Southern Humanities Review, the Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. His collection Volcano: An A to Z and Other Essays about Geology, Geography, and Geo-Travel in the American West won the 2016 Bauhan Publishing Monadnock Essay Collection Prize.