Deflection

I did a lot of driving, but it was kind of uneventful day, and the weather did not help, since it was warm, but it was drizzling most of the time and it did not show up on the radar.

During the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition, I studied their journey closely. When mom and I was in the state of Oregon, we when to Fort Clatsop their winter quarters. Whenever I was around the location of their trip, I aways took the time to visit the land and museums. And, with my interest in their journey, I have read several books. Today, when I got to the tavern that Lewis died in, it was closed on the inside, like on Mondays and Tuesdays. The inside is to be an interpretive center, and, as small as the tavern is, it is not much of a interpretive center. I did get to see the memorial on top of his grave, and it is a shaft cut short, just like Lewis’s life was cut short.

I could go on for quite a while on his death, but I will keep it short. When Stephen Ambrose wrote Undaunted Courage, he wrote that Lewis took his life in the early morning. Based on his research on Lewis’s background, and the reason the Thomas Jefferson sent William Clark on the expedition, Lewis mental heath and the stress that he was currently under was given as the cause of death, but family members of Lewis still claim that he was murdered. I will let you draw your own conclusion.

To get to Lewis’s grave, I had to travel on the Natchez Trace that is a 444 miles from Jackson, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee. Lewis was traveling the Natchez Trace when he did on his way to Washington, D.C., with his expenses and journal from the expedition. Today, the dirt path can still be traveled, and I walk part of it today. However, the path has become a highway parkway. Just like the interstate highways, there are only ramps to get off and on the Trace. Although the highway is probably designed for 65 mph, the safety features are not up to today’s standards, with no shoulders, narrow bridges, and maybe and maybe not recoverable fore slopes. I have a feeling that this highway would be unbearable in the summer, with all of the bicyclist; therefore, it would sure be nice to have like 8 to 10-foot shoulders. As for today, without may tourist, the highway was vacant of vehicles. A nice road to travel.

As I was looking the information over about the Natchez Trace, I noticed the David Crockett State Park was like 16 miles further down the highway, so I decided to take the park in. When I finally got to the Museum, it was closed. It is like driving through the park today; it seems like there were more employees than people in the park.

To round off the day, it is a great time to be in these parks since they are not crowded, but so many things that there to see are closed, but I am going to keep taking in history.

Roger