I-44 West

"You’ll never make it.” That’s what my Christian friend, Mark told me before my family and I started out on our summer vacation road trip.

I’m sure Lewis and Clark got the same buncha crap from their buddies when they set out on their expedition. Haha, you’ll be dead by the fork in the Missouri. Or, You’ll never get horses from the Shoshone for the rest of the crossing, you losers.

Gee, thanks.

We are on a Westward Expansion, too—my family and me. Our usual voyages, from Northern Illinois, take us north to Wisconsin. Three, four, five hours tops. I have conditioned myself to be exhausted by Green Bay or Stevens Point. Can’t make it any longer. Go on without me. But, this summer we’re heading south and west. To Texas. Austin. 1100 miles, one way. I tell my friend, Mark, who snickers, “You’ll never make it.”

“Whatever,” I say. But in my heart, I wonder, too, and decide we shouldn’t tell Sacagawea. Or my wife.

By Springfield I need an extra-large coffee with a turbo-shot. By the Gateway Arch we need to stop for a stretch, and lunch. Near where I imagine Lewis and Clark took their first potty break. But after that I break through the wall. Like the runners high. I can do this! Look, I’m driving! Gliding down the Missouri turnpike that winds between hills and trees that watch from the side, like the river tribes spectating to see if the white men will make it through the rapids. They wag their heads, “They’ll never make it.” But, these aren’t rapids, and this is no dugout canoe.

We are at a controlled cruise down I-44 W. No worries. We have an atlas. A kid’s atlas. Google maps. And, GPS. All of which, I suppose, would not be possible without Lewis & Clark’s painstaking, plotting work of sketching the surface. But by western Missouri we have wandered into strange territory. I wonder what Lewis & Clark thought. Signs that call out “Report Feral Hogs”, and “Visit the Vacuum Cleaner Museum”, and ‘World’s Largest Rocking Chair”. There is also a ratio of churches to adult gift shops of 1:1. One wonders which came first: Bethel Baptist Church or Big Louie’s Adult Gifts? New Life Evangelistic Center or The Velvet Box Adult Gift Shop? Abundant Life Christian Center or The Lion’s Den Adult Gift Shop? Yes, you heard me, The Lion’s Den Adult Gift Shop. It’s a conflicted stretch of road.

It’s no wonder that Merriwether Lewis would often wander off the river with his Black Newfoundland, Seaman, to get away from the drag of the Missouri, or to look for something bigger than the world’s largest rocking chair. Mysterious flora and fauna. Lewis and Clark thought that they might even discover Wooly Mammoths and other prehistoric animals on their journey west.

And if I know my history right, perhaps Merriwether, in his off-river wanderings, even stumbled across Meramec Caverns in Stanton, Missouri, better known as Jesse James’ Hideout. Although the dozens upon dozens of signs announcing the “Jesse James Hideout”, and the “Jesse James Wax Museum”, and the Jesse James Zip Line Tour, and the “You Missed the Turnoff for Jesse James’ Hideout 500 Feet Back”, etc. probably made it easy to find. Which also probably made it a bad hideout for the outlaw Missourian and his gang. One Meramec Caverns sign even depicts Jesse James and a dinosaur in the same montage. Now, “Jesse James vs. the Triceratops” is a movie I would go see, but I imagine the explanation is that there are fossils in the very cavern where the thieves counted their loot.

Three years after his return from the expedition, however, Merriwether took his own life. I postulate that he would have taken his life sooner, if he had had to travel thru Oklahoma, but that is another story. And some say Jesse James knew all along that one of his gang members, Robert Ford, would betray him and kill him in cold blood, and yet he turned his back to him and took a bullet to the head.

Now, why would some of our country’s most famous adventurer’s end their lives like this?

Maybe they thought their best was in the past. Maybe the dinosaurs of fame and immortality they were chasing caught them from behind. My theory is this: Merriwether and Jesse felt the emptiness of never grabbing hold of anyone or anything. They only stopped long enough to take what they needed. Like stones skipping across the Missouri. They only sketched the surface in their lives.

Maybe sketching the surface only counts as a fraction of a life. Only abbreviations and highlights.

You’ll be happy to know, brothers and sisters, and Mark, that we made it to Texas, and back, despite the sucking vortex of Oklahoma. I learned about the cautionary tales of Merriwether and Jesse. And, I have this to report: It is a conflicted world out there. And it raised some questions: Am I content as I travel this life to only sketch the surface? Content to deal only in fractions, abbreviations and highlights? Am I a stone skipping across the depths?

I wonder.