Missouri native writes about state's back roads

Former Tourism director will sign autographs on Wednesday

His sister, Susan, told John Drake Robinson that "well-traveled kids seem to adjust better to life. They understand how things fit together."

Robinson tells about that conversation on page 2 of his 185-page book, "A Road Trip Into America's Hidden Heart: Traveling the Back Roads, Backwoods and Back Yards."

Robinson - who served as Missouri's Tourism director from 2002-06 - also wrote that the conversation with his sister, a teacher, "made me stop and take inventory."

After his sister died - and after he left the Tourism Division - Robinson decided to take his own travels along Missouri's back roads, and find interesting stories waiting to be discovered.

"I found 32,314 stories on the road," he wrote.