Chapter One - Lewis and Clark Senior Style
Concept
Ten years ago my husband,
Russ, read Undaunted Courage, the story of the Lewis and Clark
Expedition. He became fascinated by the achievement
of the two young men leading a group of thirty-one adventurers across uncharted
lands inhabited by warrior natives. That
Christmas I gave him the twelve volume set of journals written by Lewis and
Clark, and when not playing golf, Russ buried himself in the world of rivers, forests,
grasslands, mountains and warring Indian tribes. When he finished reading the final volume, he
decided that one day we should follow the path of these thirty-one men, and the
trip went on top of his bucket list.
The summer of our 70th
birthdays seemed the right time to cross Lewis and Clark trip off his bucket
list. Of course, I had to add a few
items to the trip. We have an annual one
week’s summer vacation that we take with our son, daughter and two nieces and
their families (a total of seventeen adults and children). The logic became why not meet the family for
a week in Seattle, which is less than 200 miles north of where Lewis and Clark
ended their journey. I have family in
Seattle, and we could visit them as well.
Additionally, each summer we go to Carmel for a two day golf tournament
my husband plays at Pebble Beach with three of his friends. Hey, Carmel is just a few hundred miles south
of Seattle we’ll whip down there after the family vacation and Russ won’t miss
his annual golf tournament. We have
friends who spend the summer in Colorado each year, why not stop by and visit
with them for a week or two on our way back home to Texas. Hmmm, somehow we were up to a nearly three
month odyssey in our car for the entire summer.
Oh well, why not, and we started packing.
Preparation
Spending three months away
from Texas in the summer is something we have done several times since Russ’s
retirement. Preparation included acquiring
three months of prescriptions, securing our home, getting mail picked up and
developing a system for paying bills. Easily
done. However, for this trip we had to
live out of our car for three months. We
needed to consider the weather for multiple destinations (low 60’s to 100
degree daytime temperatures). Also, many
different activities including Russ’s attendance at the golf tournament banquet
requiring a sports jacket plus hiking boots for trekking to Lewis and Clark’s
isolated sites. In summary – we had to
pack “Okie” style. (To understand the
term “Okie” you need to read the Grapes of Wrath.) Once packed our SUV looked suspiciously like the
Joad family car as it crossed the desert
to California. The back of the MDX was
loaded with shopping bags containing cameras, computers, chargers along with my
coffee pot and both our favorite pillows, to say nothing of shoes, hats, snacks,
two sets of golf clubs and a supply of wine and gin. Hey, we like our creature comforts. Our preparation was not as important as Lewis and Clark’s. We didn’t need rifles and ammunition for hunting and warding off possible Indian attacks. (Historical footnote: The Lewis and Clark expedition ran out of food, clothing and most other supplies, but they returned from the two year expedition with enough guns and ammunition to make two more trips.) En total the expedition started out with some 20 tons of supplies including oil cloth for tents, tools, soap, food, whiskey and medical supplies. The captains took scientific books and instruments enabling them to produce maps and preserve new plants growing in the uncharted lands they were about to enter. Their cache of supplies further included gifts such as kettles, beads and tobacco for negotiating with Indian tribes. Theirs was a scientific, diplomatic and military as well as explorative expedition. We only had in common with Lewis and Clark that we had to consider a wide range of possible needs.
Departure
Having already said goodbye
to our daughter and two grandbabies, who live a few miles from our house, we
left our Austin home June 21 and spent our first night at the Dallas home of
our son, his wife and our oldest grandson.
We promised the 3 ½ year old that we would periodically send him
presents. The previous Christmas had
impressed him, and he seemed to really like the idea of us sending him presents. When planning the trip we decided to intersect Lewis and Clark’s trek at Kansas City. The captains had begun their journey in St Louis, 250 miles east of Kansas City, in May of 1804. Initially, the expedition consisted of the two captains, thirty enlisted men (Corps of Discovery) and more than a dozen boat men (voyagers) who would only go as far as the Mandan Village, present Day Bismarck, where the expedition planned to spend the winter. From St Louis the Corps of Discovery and accompanying voyagers traveled due West on the Missouri River in a 55’ Keel boat, and two 35’ pirogues loaded with supplies.
It took the Discovery Corps over two months, sailing, rowing or dragging the boats against the river current to make it to where the Missouri River turns due North, the present site of Kansas City. For us it was a 1 ½ day drive from Dallas with a two night stay in Branson, Missouri to buy toys at Dick’s Five and Dime store and attend a Merle Haggard concert. Dick’s Five and Dime store was a hoot and even better than the Five and Dime stores we remembered from our childhood. The Merle Haggard concert was great. He is seventy-six years old and sings his famous songs with passion and feeling. Our only issues were loading and unloading those half dozen bags from the back of the car plus four suitcases (one medium size suitcase for me and three small ones for Russ). Once in the room we had to line the walls and sometimes surround the bed with these bags. We would spend half our time rummaging through the wrong bag trying to find something. This living Okie style was a real pain.
Arrival at the Wide Missouri in Kansas
City and Nebraska City
In the heart of downtown
Kansas City we passed over the Missouri.
We were excited because the view of the river from the bridge
represented the true beginning of our journey to follow the Lewis and Clark’s
route. Traveling north alongside the
Missouri which separates the states of Nebraska and Iowa, we arrived at
Nebraska City to visit our first Lewis
and Clark Interpretive Center. The
exhibit had life size reproductions of a keel boat and a pirogue, which had
been created for a National Geographic movie.
Of course, it was raining, but we were able to walk on the keel boat and
get a feel for its size and construction.
Keel Boat Reproduction
Inside the center I found a wall size map of Lewis and Clark’s journey
and asked Russ to explain the route to me, which up until then I didn’t fully
understand. Because of this huge map, I
finally got it. Lewis and Clark traveled
north on the Missouri which remains the state border line between Missouri and
Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, and finally Iowa and South Dakota. They stayed on the river until just north of Bismarck
where they wintered. In the Spring of
1805 they followed the Missouri as it turned west across Montana until they
reached its source in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho. From there they portaged over the northern
Rockies until they reached the source of the Columbia River and canoed down it
until they reached the Pacific Ocean.
Reading the exhibit
information clarified for us the differences between the Missouri River now and
in Lewis and Clark’s time. When the
captains traveled up the Missouri, the river was between one and two miles
wide, dotted with islands and plagued with snags. In the 1950’s the Corps of Engineers channeled
the river to prevent flooding, and today the Missouri rarely exceeds two
hundred yards in width. As we drove the
150 mile distance from Kansas City to Nebraska City we noticed that the river
resembled a muddy, tree lined canal. The
ground once covered by a two mile wide expanse of water was now beautiful farm
land, green with thriving summer crops. A
very different view from Lewis and Clark’s.
Council Bluffs, Iowa
Our destination the first driving
day along the Missouri was Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Lewis and Clark had
their first meeting with the Indians in late July, 1804. The captains had hoped to meet with Indian
tribes earlier in their journey, but had only passed several large abandoned
villages. (Prior to Lewis and Clark’s arrival, tens of thousands of Indians had
died of white man’s diseases carried
by French and British trappers.) The
captains’ first encounter with the Indians was on a high bluff overlooking the
Missouri at what is now the town of Council Bluffs. Lewis and Clark met with representatives of
the Otoe and Missouria Indians, who had united because each of their tribes had
lost most of their populations due to disease.
Lewis delivered his memorized Indian
speech through a sign language interpreter.
The United States had just purchased the territory from France, and
Lewis explained to the Indians that they had a new “Great White Father” in
Washington. The captains then
distributed peace medals and an American flag.
The Indians recognized the change in White Father’s (Napoleon to Jefferson),
might alter their trading practices, but they didn’t think much of the gifts from
the white men. They were more interested
in gun powder, whiskey and tobacco than a flag and medals.
Russ and I had different
problems upon arrival in Council Bluffs.
We hadn’t made hotel reservations because we weren’t certain of our arrival
date. We called several hotels from the
car and couldn’t find a room. Finally, I
asked if something was going on in town, and the desk clerk responded that the
National College World Series was being held in Omaha for the next three
days. Who knew? After repeated phone calls we finally found a
suite in one of the nicer hotels, so we decided we would stay two days. I liked the decision. This loading and unloading multiple bags of
stuff was getting old.
Russ outdid himself on sleeping in our first morning in Council Bluff and didn’t get up until 11:00am. Meanwhile I took a walk and made use of the fitness room. After lunch (or was it breakfast?) we visited our second Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. The best part of the exhibit was the view. It wasn’t the same bluff where Lewis and Clark met their first Indians, but it was nearby. Staying two nights in a suite was great for all our bags. We weren’t tripping over our stuff every time we turned around. The next day we loaded up the car and visited the Western Historic Trails Center before leaving town. It had very little information on Lewis and Clark, but it showed the various routes taken by the settlers to Oregon, California and Utah. A quick visit sufficed and we were on the road again.
Sioux City – Spirit Mound- Yankton
We reached Sioux City by
lunch and found a lovely restaurant overlooking the river, then drove to the
nearby Lewis and Clark Interpretive
Center, which was also on the river.
The Center has a huge bronze statue of Lewis and Clark and Lewis’ dog,
Seaman. Prior to leaving on the
expedition, Lewis paid twenty dollars for the Newfoundland dog that became an
integral part of the Discovery Corps.
The expedition reached present day Sioux City on August 20, and the most
momentous event at that location was the death of Sgt. Floyd, the only fatality
on the journey. Floyd, who apparently
died of appendicitis, was only twenty-two years old. He was well liked and respected by the
corps. They buried him atop a bluff
where now a towering memorial marks his grave. We continued following the state Highway north along the Missouri and entered South Dakota. Just north of Vermillion, a charming South Dakota town, we took a brief side trip off the main road to visit Spirit Mound, where on August 25, 1804, the captains hiked 6 miles from the river to climb the mound for a far ranging view of the endless flat lands surrounding it. Three hundred acres of prairie were being restored to natural grasslands and flowers by a local historic group, and the area is one of the few places that looked as it did when Lewis and Clark visited it. Being seniors we didn’t hike the mound, but we admired it from the car window before heading back to the main road.
Spirit Mound
Our next stop was Yankton, where we would again
spend two nights. Like Vermillion,
Yankton is a charming small town, the original capital of the Dakota Territory,
and where we had made reservations at the Best Western. The hotel had an indoor
pool, huge hot dub and an excellent restaurant, Minervas, where we both ordered
Walleye, a fabulous eating fish that was cooked to perfection. After dinner we drove around the little town
and discovered an old bridge, built in 1927 that is no longer in use by
automobiles. Scores of locals were
walking across the bridge which separates South Dakota from Nebraska. (I am always surprised to find how close I am
to another state when I cross the Missouri.)
The walk was delightful and reminded me of walking around the lake in
Austin or walking the wall with the Italian locals the three months we spent in
the Tuscan village of Lucca. Life
doesn’t get any better. Ah yes, and the
temperature was a mild 75 decrees a far cry from the 104 degree day Austin was
enduring.
Reproduction of Lewis' Newfoundland Dog "Seaman"
The next morning we visited
another Lewis and Clark Interpretive
Center, which was situated atop Calumet bluff overlooking Lewis and Clark
Lake and the Gavins Point dam. Lewis and
Clark had their first meeting with the Yankton Sioux at this location on August
30. 1804. The Sioux were known as the most
ferocious tribe in the uncharted West, and Jefferson had asked Lewis and Clark
to take special care in meeting with them.
The Sioux listened to Lewis’ memorized Indian speech, and all appeared to go well. That evening we ate once again at Minerva’s
and enjoyed their fabulous Walleye fish.
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