Journeys.....

.... a few days ago I found myself out on the patio reading deeply from General Gibbon's book Adventures on the Western Frontier... the tropical heat that has plagued us here recently has slaked a bit, and the shade of the dogwood trees make for an excellent locale during a late-afternoon reading.... especially whilst waiting for dinner and the cocktail hour to arrive..... the flagstones and gravel seem to remain cool with only the slightest of shade.....

.... I'd been given the book as a gift years ago, and had read it cover to cover immediately..... it is beautifully written in a dairy type of style, and it truly is a view of the American West that is unique..... any history fans out there, I highly suggest you pick up a copy....... it's definitely worth the effort due to its honest depiction of one man's experiences with the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Nez Perce....... something that most of today's history books are woefully lacking in..... and certainly something that you will never find in Hollywood, either..... it's like all the greatest of stories, you only truly know what went on when you talk to (or read about) someone who was actually there - boots on the ground.... or stirrups, as the case may have been....

.... it is odd, I guess, but I sought it out from the shelf specifically because of something that I noticed on my little day-planner calendar from The History Channel a few days ago.....

.... here, check this out....

August 20 Friday

1804: Corps of Discovery suffers its only death.

The Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, suffered its first and only death on this day in 1804. Sergeant Charles Floyd, a native of Kentucky, was among the first to join Lewis and Clark on their journey to the Pacific Ocean. By the end of July, Lewis and Clark reported that Floyd had become ill. He died in the early afternoon and was buried on a high bluff overlooking a tributary of the Missouri River. The expedition's two captains named the stream Floyd River and the hill Floyd's Bluff.

... I re-read Gibbon's book and was amazed at his description of "following Lewis & Clark's" footsteps through the Rockies..... how he'd found their old camps - some 70 years old - and could still make out where they had discarded tins, and built their campfires..... and I read on about how he and his men marveled when they first saw Yellowstone......

.... and yet the land was still dangerous and laden with discovery - even last late as the 1880s..... hell, I guess it still is now, if truth be told....... but here is the twist, folks....

.... Lewis and Clark set out in 1803..... and they mapped their way all the way through the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean..... two years they were gone..... through an unknown land full of Native Americans, bears, blizzards, mountain passes, rand iver crossings too many to count...... and out of their entire party, only one man died on that awesome adventure..... and his death was most likely due to disease, and not the local flora, fauna, or freak accident...

..... I'm sorry, but I sit here now in awe that so many intrepid adventurers could spend two years roaming a dangerous, unknown landscape, and all return safe and sound - save one.......

.. how many of us now could do such a thing?.... pick up a rifle, shoulder a pack, and set off from Pittsburgh towards points unknown, reach the Pacific Ocean, and return across a continent again?......

.... well, according to Wikipedia, this hardy fellow was up to the task a good few years before Lewis & Clark, but still...... what a journey........