Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Tuesday, August 5, 2025

For Month 8 “Mindfulness and Travel, I’ll share the story of how the country to which I arrived as an immigrant in 1974 became my home. A trip with my husband tracing the last leg of Lewis and Clark’s Expedition from the east to the west coast was an adventure of a lifetime for both of us, especially for me. 

After reading two hefty volumes, Undaunted Courage and Journals of Lewis and Clark I was “called” to go on the same journey. My husband and I took a flight from Pittsburgh, PA to Portland, Oregon. From there we embarked on a boat that carried us upon the waters of the Columbia and Snake Rivers.

The third American President, Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) had envisioned an expedition that would boldly navigate the heart and the west of the country, mapping rivers, land, and mountains; gathering information about agricultural potential; collecting vocabularies of Indian languages and cultures; and bringing back specimens and scientific descriptions of unknown animals and plants. 

Jefferson’s vision became a reality on May 14, 1804, when 30-year-old Captain Lewis Meriwether started sail on a keelboat and two pirogues from the Ohio River. The crew consisted of his co-captain, William Clark, 29 young volunteers (the Corps of Discovery), Sacagawea, a Shoshone Indian woman, her French husband and their baby, and Lewis’s Newfoundland dog, Seaman.

From Ohio River they sailed on to the Missouri River and discovered that the voyage they had embarked upon was not solely via waterways, as Jefferson had imagined. There were treacherous mountains (Bitterroot Range) to cross after which the crew continued sailing on Columbia River and finally arrived at a town now called Astoria in Oregon.

Attacks from maddening mosquitoes as they slept in drenched clothes; treading wild prairies in elk leather moccasins as the prickly pear hidden in the tall grasses slashed their feet; excessive hunger forced them to slaughter dogs and colts for food (luckily not Seaman). These were a few of the severe hardships and miseries they faced. However, the captains and the crew demonstrated what could be accomplished with an audacious vision, focused intention, meticulous planning, and physical strength. Their journey took two years, four months, and nine days. 

Why did reading about Lewis and Clark’s treacherous journey impel me to adventure on my own? Why did I feel the need to follow their path? What was the cause of my quest? 

(To be continued . . .)