Westward, ho!
Cynthia has worked since January to plan a family trip to the west, focused mainly on the westward expansion of the U.S. in the early 1800s. Yesterday we set off in our Toyota Previa van, planning to camp about half the nights, and return July 28.

Over the next three weeks, we'll pass through nine states in our quest to plumb the experience of those who participated in the expansion of the U.S. that doubled its land area with the Louisiana Purchase, including Lewis & Clark, the homesteaders, and most of all, the native Americans who never failed to help, at least at first.

Our itinerary takes us as far northwest as Yellowstone and as far southwest as Mesa Verde, Colorado.

We are traveling in a modern-day prairie schooner – a minivan filled to the roof (and above) with supplies.

One of the advantages we have over our pioneer predecessors (besides speed), is that we carry for the children every electronic diversion that can be plugged in to a 12-volt system.

Following is a list of our daily destinations and links to photos. Given the rigors of travel, I will have to wait to record whatever cogent thoughts might occur when time allows. Hopefully I will do better than Merriwether Lewis, who was never able to bring himself to collect his rich notes into publishable form.

Wednesday, July 7
We started out from Amherst @ 4 p.m., bound for Syracuse, New York.

We arrived in a downpour at Cazenovia Lake near Syracuse, New York, happy that Cyn's old friend Jean had offered us her cabin at the last minute and we didn't have to pitch the tent.

Thursday, July 8
Before visiting briefly with cousin Jaime in Syracuse, we stopped to show the kids Cyn's childhood homes, including 200 Edgemere Lane, where she moved in eight grade.

As we crossed the Berkshires yesterday, I found myself wondering which tribes used to live there, and what it was like to travel there when Capts. Meriwether Lewis & William Clark made their way through similar territory on their way to St. Charles, Missouri. The Corps of Discovery set off from St. Joseph, Missouri, 200 years ago today.

Thanks to modern horsepower and paved roads, we were able to make a sidetrip to see Niagra Falls.

For the night, we camped at Portage Lakes State Campground near Akron, Ohio.

Friday, July 9

Today we spent a wonderful hour in Fredericksburg, Ohio, with Cyn's friend David Kline (and now mine, too!). David is an Amish farmer who lives in the heart of the country's largest Amish community. It does the heart good to look out on a landscape with so many farms, set apart by only the acreage one man can farm with horses.

David has kept a "farm list" of birds he has seen during his life, which stands now at 660. He filled out five-gallon water jug at the hand pump just outside his kitchen. As he said, it was the sweetest water I've ever had.

I believe that David's relationship to the land is a profound source of spirit for him, as it was for the Indians who lived ther before him.This is an idea that will weave through our journey, as we follow the strands of the white expansion into western lands, and what happened.

We left David just before noon, stocked up on Amish-raised food at a local store, bought an Amish hat for Dad, and headed towards a campground in Marshall, Illinois. A thunderstorm kept us on the road and convinced us to check into a motel.

Saturday, July 10
At 9:30 a.m., the odometer shows we're 1,156 miles along. Farmland stretches to the horizon. In one field, a huge (75-foot?), highly-machned metal Christian cross rises. Spray-painted grafitti on a bridge abuttment reads, "Trust Jesus."

At 11:00, we see the soaring arch in St. Louis, which symbolizes the westward expansion at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. We learned much in the museum below the ground of the arch. The complex is formally called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial after Thomas Jefferson, whose dream of a coast-to-coast empire motivated the westward expansion, most notably through the Lewis & Clark expedition and the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

The arch itself is magnificent -- a stainless steel triangular solid which soars to a height of 640 feet above the ground. Its architect, Eero Saarinen,had a vision of architecture which I think would have resonated with Jefferson, and also ironically with the Indians, who found their nobility in their relationship to spirit in all things, including their dwellings:

"To the question, what is the purpose of architecture, I would answer: To shelter and enhance man's life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence."

-- Eero Saarinen, 12/1/59, quoted on a plaque in the memorial museum

At @ 4:30 p.m., we passed St. Charles, Missouri, one of a few cities which claim to be the starting-off point for the Lewis & Clark expedition.

We spent the night at a Days Inn in Concordia, Missouri, with no time or connection for fixing the camera.

Sunday, July 11
Bound for St. Joseph, Missouri, which Lewis & Clark reached after about a month on the Missouri from St. Charles. The city was winding up a week-long Trails West festival with lots of attractions and exhibits.

St. Charles is also home to the preserved and partially rebuilt stables of the Pony Express, which was the fastest method for getting informationfrom St. Joseph to Sacramento, California. It was the internet of its day, though built on an enormous infrastructure -- 400 horses and 150 stations. It operated for only 19 months and ended bankrupt when coast-to-coast telegraph made it unnecessary in 1860.

It's awfully hot these days -- high nineties.

Back on the interstate. Fields to the horizon, laced with the dark green outline of trees. Gorgeous.

We enter Nebraska @ 6 p.m. The landscape is all corn, beef feedlots, some rangeland, but no people. We camp at Rock Creek Station state campground, a stop on the Oregon trail and also the Pony Express, where ruts from the wagons are still visible, and the station is restored. Here also are examples of the prairie grasses found when pioneers first came upon them.

Monday, July 12
Today we visited the Homestead National Monument in Beatrice, Nebraska.

In the evening we arrived in Ogallala, were we were treated to the longest-running summer stock performance in Nebraska -- a gunfight and cowboy/showgirl revue which was terrific. We have entered the Wild West.

I tried to get the camera working in the Ogallala library, but no luck.

Tuesday, July 13
A stop at the Fur Trade Museum to learn about the first wave of plunderers -- the trappers and traders -- and then into the Black Hills of South Dakota, to the Allen Ranch in Hot Springs.

After setting up our tipi for the night, tubing on the creek, and an hour-long horseback ride up steep trails into the beauty, we repaired to town, where Cyn and the kids hit the mineral springs, and Lee hit the library. Camera fixed!

At the ranch, we were lucky enough to spend lots of time with Cody, a mountain man re-enactor, who taught us much about the hunters and trappers who were the necessary link between the first explorers and the settlers.

Wednesday, July 14

Mt. Rushmore
Hail in Keystone

After a hot day, the swimming pool was "the bomb" at Bell's Motor Lodge in Spearfish, South Dakota.