There and Back Again

My Normal Route From Lakewood to Kensington

In the spring of an early year of the 19th century Lewis and Clark set-out to cross the country and for the next two years they traversed two thousand miles across the Louisiana Purchase and made their way to the pacific coast. There are some really nice Lewis and Cark commemorative exhibits along the route we took. The best that I have seen (and it is free!) is at the rest area on I-90 just outside Chamberlain, South Dakota.

The point of this is that every time I cross the country I am left with the feeling of awe that our forbearers made it at all. Thinking of the crossing of the Great Plains with its endless miles of nothing but Great Plains (and just what is so great about the Great Plains anyway?) makes my head swim. The thought of hour-upon-hour without as much as the decaying husk of a defunct Stuckey’s makes me wonder how they got up the nerve to get up and hitch the oxen to the Conestoga every morning.

I have to say though, that travel has changed greatly since I have been traversing the country let alone since 1803.

In the sixties, my folks used to take us to Minnesota from Florida. The trip is only a couple hundred miles longer than that we made this past weekend. In the days before the interstates that trip used to take us three or four days each way. And at that we were going from major city to major city most of the way so there were pretty good US highways to follow. I cannot imagine how long that trip would have taken from here in that day and age!

Well, I guess I had best get back to getting my unpacked stuff that I dumped in the living room when I got home last light put away. I have laundry to do and some basic clean-up before I can call the most recent excursion well and truly behind me.

I hope you are having a good evening wherever you are!

Don Bergquist – 31, May, 2005 – Lakewood, Colorado