Lewis and Clark Slept Here

I have been on the road three days and have covered 1,337 miles, or almost a third of the total trip distance. I have been waiting for the landscape to change, but the variations have been subtle. On Saturday I rolled through hour after hour of Ohio and Illinois farmland. Today I covered Missouri and a good bit of Oklahoma. The Missouri bluffs were pretty and greener than I expected. The other surprise: roadkill armadillos.

Yesterday I knocked around St. Louis with my sister. We ditched the Arch and explored the Delmar Loop, rubbing elbows with Midwestern hipsters and trawling vintage clothing shops. In late afternoon we climbed the Indian bluffs outside of the city, about the oldest and most mysterious thing the area has to offer.

Clark recorded seeing the Cahokia Mounds while the expedition was camped out on the eastern side of the Mississippi River during the winter of 1803/1804. It was a freezing day in January, the cold bitter enough that his wet feet froze to his shoes so that they had to be carefully extracted from the leather. Quite a change from the sweltering heat of midsummer I felt yesterday, a field of rolled haybales visible just to the left and the city limits of Collinsville, IL hardly a stone's throw away.

Beyond St. Louis I hit Interstate 44, built to bypass historic Route 66. There was a earlier route that predated both of these roads, a universe away from joyriding Americans reveling in the freedom of the highway. This same ground had been traveled over by Cherokees marching westward on the Trail of Tears. This is the dark side of the American dream and the pioneer spirit, the part that kills or dislocates whatever gets in its way.

Tomorrow, I'm off to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum to look at some old cattle trail maps and other relics. This seemed the place to start digging into the West, to see it in its distilled museum form.

Tonight, I'm camping out with the sounds of cicadas surrounding my tent. I chatted with a couple folks who were impressed and maybe a little surprised to see a woman traveling alone. Turns out they spent a stint in northern Virginia. It's a small world.

Gone, Baby, Gone

Here it is - the map of my route. It's a big trip.

The idea is to cover as much ground as possible, maybe get a little road-weary, but definitely get a sense of the space and atmosphere of the Far West.

I'm traveling from DC to St. Louis, then heading south to Oklahoma and Texas. After cooling my heels in Austin for a couple days, I swing north into Kansas and Colorado, and then up into Wyoming to explore Cody and Yellowstone. Bozeman, MT is the end of the trail before driving home, just like it was back in the heyday of the cattledrives.

48 Hours

This morning my thoughts are jumpy enough that I probably don't need the second cup of coffee I am drinking. Its not yet 9 o'clock in the morning and already the heavy heat of DC summer is seeping in around the windows.

Yesterday I wrote a bit about the mindset of early pioneers and explorers, and wondered what their thoughts may have been on the eve of their adventures. Its a mindset that is probably completely lost to us today: the contours of the globe are too well known, our coordinates easily programmed in GPS devices, and SATphones keeping us connected from virtually anywhere on earth.

So if not danger and discovery, what am I seeking? I can think of many answers to that question, all of them true but none of them complete.

I am going for the search. Sure, this territory is well-canvassed and well-traveled. But it is new to me, and I am new to it. It is the newness that captivates me, and the sense of being lost in something much bigger than myself.

Sometimes the past surges forward and crashes over us like a wave. A few years ago I spent some time in England and studied in Canterbury, where I made many visits to Canterbury Cathedral. This ancient edifice of English Christianity still hangs timelessly over the city, its stones as cool and quiet as they were a millennium ago. I remember kneeling in one of the side chapels in the crypt, alone, the patter of tourists' feet echoing in the main passage, and being swept away by the feeling that someone else might have been praying in that very spot 500, 600, 800, or 1,000 years ago. Separated in time, we became united in geography. It was a moment I wanted to sit still for.

The photo in this post is of the Bugaboo Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. They run roughly parallel to the Rockies and are breathtakingly beautiful, the weather fickle as it is at high altitudes, and their silent immensity giving the impression that the world is nothing but mountains. It is this sense of immersion that stops me in my tracks. In Washington, I am part of many things - work, friendships, professional networks, volunteerism - but there is no single experience that defines my day to day life.

Out in bigger spaces, with bigger vistas, maybe there is the possibility of being overwhelmed in the best possible sense.

72 Hours

Roadtrips are as American as apple pie. There comes a point-probably many points-where we have to go through the rite of passage to pack up the car, top off the gas tank, pile in the CDs, and drive off in search of adventure.

In less than 72 hours I'm diving deep into this fantasyland myself. For the past 10 years I have daydreamed about exploring the reaches of the Far West. Maybe it was the result of growing up with too much Little House on the Prairie. Maybe it's because as an East Coaster, I was (and continue to be) fascinated by any place where the horizon goes on unbroken. Or perhaps I am finally getting around to taking Horace Greeley's advice, issued to disaffected DC denizens almost a century and a half ago, to "Go West!"

I'm not sure what Lewis and Clark were thinking as they rode West and into the unknown, or what went through the mind of kids trying their luck as Pony Express riders, or immigrants who packed their bags and their hopes and traveled towards the setting sun. My trip is going to be an easy one in comparison, my route neatly laid out in Google maps, my car stocked with snacks and air conditioning, and my gear designed with all the technological advancements of the past two centuries. No canvas tents or itchy wool or nasty hardtack biscuits. I'm only a temporary pioneer.

The places I intend to see are iconic. Texas, larger than life and as John Steinbeck once said "a state of mind." Dodge City, KS. Cody, WY, which has had a summertime rodeo going strong since the 1930s and performers who reenact frontier gunfights every evening. Bozeman, MT, which people say is beautiful as God's own country. And finally, Deadwood, SD made famous by the TV miniseries and where the hotel owned by the town's former sheriff still stands and is reportedly haunted by his ghost.

This is where I'm headed, into the dust and memories, where past and present and future overlap. Once upon a time...and off into the sunset.

Note: This is not an actual picture of me. Its an iStock photo of what I would look like if I had brown curly hair and a bunch of sunflowers in front of my face. Real trip pictures coming soon!