All Roads Lead to Roam

Part 1

[This is the first part of a travelogue which is, in essence, a love song to America.]

We left Nashville shortly before noon heading Northwest on I-24. We crossed the Cumberland River on the way out of town on I-65. We crossed the Tennessee River on I-24 and then the Ohio River later in the day. We crossed the Mississippi on I-64 and the Missouri towards the end of the day on I-70. You cannot appreciate the wealth that has been generated by the ability to reach so much of our inland space with navigable rivers; it is truly a Godsend to this nation. This was the first day of this year’s travel adventure which was dreamed up under the working title of “Westward Ho 25!”

Our objective for the 5,000 mile plus round trip to Los Angeles and back was two-fold. First was to see our youngest granddaughter’s first ballet recital in LA and second was to choose a path that maximized the number of National Parks, Monuments, Historic Sites and Preserves that we could visit. This trip was the encore to last year’s out-and-back where we stayed on a more Southerly trajectory and hit White Sands National Park, Saguaro and Joshua Tree on the way out. On the way back we hit Zion, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and Painted Desert.

This year’s route was a bit more ambitious: Gateway Arch, Great Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde, Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon National Parks on the way out. We also included the Tall Grass Prairie National Preserve, the Lewis and Clark Boat House National Monument and Mark Twain’s Birthplace in Florida, Missouri. After our familial visit in LA, we had Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monuments and Hot Springs National Park dialed in on the way home.

The National Park Service devised a devilish way to tweak our dopamine receptors some years ago when they invented the “National Park Passport.” This little book is carried from Park to Park, and it allows the bearer to put a cancellation stamp into the book upon arrival at the Visitor’s Center. There are over 400 cancellation stations in the National Park System, so we have a way to go! In addition, you can purchase cancellation stickers that add credence to your claim that you have visited the Park. The book is broken down by color coded regions: North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, National Capital, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, Rocky Mountain, Western, Pacific Northwest & Alaska. In addition to collecting a number of stamps in our Passport, we have taken up the collection of Christmas ornaments from every park. With a couple more of these trips, we will be able to have a Christmas tree decorated entirely with memories of our National Park escapades.

ST. LOUIS, GATEWAY NATIONAL PARK

Gateway Arch was established as a National Park in 1935 to commemorate the westward expansion of the United States. The iconic Arch was built in two years, opening in 1965. Two years…there were no environmental legal challenges to its construction that would no doubt turn it into a decade(s) long project in the modern era. It is 630 feet tall and 630 feet wide and mimics a catenary arch: “a curve formed by a chain under its own weight.” The stainless steel glistened as the sun was beginning to set as we completed our walk around of the Park, a stroll along the Mississippi River and the first installment of this year’s “Bandit Across America,” a tribute to our beagle, Bandit, who has now covered more miles in her first six-years than most people do in half a lifetime.

The Park is an urban park and thus comes with all the modern trappings of urban safety: metal scanners, heavy police presence, the sense that there are cameras everywhere watching you. I realized upon entering the cool of the air-conditioned lobby of the visitor’s center that I had better not go through the metal scanner. I have carried a pocketknife since I was old enough to have pockets and in addition to my 3” flipper clipped to my pocket, I was carrying a pack that sported a large Swiss Army knife. I beat a quick retreat outside to where my lovely wife was entertaining Bandit – dogs are not allowed in visitors centers either! Stripping myself of all my potential weapons I returned and found the cancellation station to get the first stamp of the 2025 odyssey

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Because we were with dog and it was very hot – could not leave her in the car – we did not make the trip to the top of the Arch. We did, however, enjoy a healthy walk around the manicured lawns of the park, admired the Lewis & Clark statue with Lewis’s labrador, Seaman, at the bow. The Arch itself offers interesting angles of observation where the geometry plays with light and shadow helping to create interesting shots for the aspiring photographer.

Completing our circumnavigation of the park we headed back to the car, stopping at the Courthouse that frames the western edge of the park. It was here that the Dred Scott Decision began its journey to the Supreme Court. Dred and Harriet Scott filed “freedom suits” in this courthouse in 1846 claiming that their residence in free territories (Illinois and Wisconsin) made them free. The jury ruled against Scott in 1847, but the case went back to trial in 1850 and Scott his wife and both daughters were granted freedom. In 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the lower court which set up the 1857 Dred Scott Decision at the United States Supreme Court where Chief Justice Taney delivered the final blow. This deepened the national division over slavery, galvanizing the abolitionist movement and arguably accelerating us on the path to the Civil War. The next day we were heading into Kansas where the first shots of a divided nation were fired in the “Kansas bleeding Kansas” battles that began in 1854 and simmered down in 1859 as Kansas entered the Union as a free state

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Listening to the news and the deep divisions in our country now, you cannot help but wonder if we are going to repeat what we did to ourselves in 1860. While I find more than a few flaws in the Strauss-Howe Theory of generational history, I do feel that we are in a very unstable and tenuous time. Perhaps we are in the fourth turning (20-25 year cycles: high, awakening, unraveling, crisis) and this crisis is being brought on by a combination of technology that we could well lose control of - artificial intelligence and a society splitting along ideological lines wherein neither side listens to nor has basic empathy for the other.

We checked into our hotel in St. Charles, picked up a pizza, and turned in for the night.