Adventure

Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail

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John Smith was an explorer, adventurer and leader whose stories, maps and detailed descriptions of life in the ‘New World’ helped convince many early immigrants to cross the Atlantic to the colonies. As a young soldier John Smith was held captive by the Turks, as a leader of the first British colony he was captured by the Powhatan, and as an explorer in New England he was held hostage by French pirates. Respectively, he escaped, was saved by Pocahontas (more than once), and negotiated his own release. He learned the local native language, forced upper class colonists to labor for food, and didn’t return to England until after some gunpowder exploded in his canoe.

The affiliated “trail” covers Smith’s detailed exploration of the rivers that flow into the Chesapeake Bay. From Hampton Roads near Fort Monroe where the bay opens to the Atlantic, he went up the James River past Jamestowne, past places that would later be Grant’s HQ in Petersburg, the Confederate Capital of Richmond, and across the Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway where the James becomes the Jackson River. Smith explored past Yorktown and up the two rivers that form West Point. He went up the Rappahannock River past Fredericksburg.

Smith also explored the Potomac, past where George Washington would be born, past Piscataway, Fort Washington and Kenilworth parks. He continued up past the Jefferson, Lincoln, LBJ and MLK memorials, past Roosevelt Island, next to the GW Parkway, past Clara Barton’s house up to the Great Falls at the C&O Canal. He went up the Patuxent River and up to Baltimore. He went up the Susquehanna River (both branches) past Steamtown and into Central New York State north of the Upper Delaware River. And he also covered the Del-Mar-Va side of the bay, where Harriet Tubman was born.

Smith also later explored and named much of New England, but this Chesapeake trail alone is certainly worthy of exploration. Someday, I’d like to return and see it by boat! And speaking of hopping around the country, Monday posts are going to cover National Parks on the West Coast, while Thursday posts will range more widely, covering more trails across the country. Enjoy!

Standing On the Shoulders of Giants

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100 years before I started this trip, my grandfather and two of his rambunctious young friends drove a 1919 Hudson Essex convertible on a summer road trip from Massachusetts to Wyoming and back.  Dreaming of Zane Grey’s purple sage, they packed their pistols and loaded their camping gear into a trailer.  Every other day or so, they had to fix either the car, the tires or the trailer.  The three of them took turns driving 50 miles each per day, while one rode in the trailer.  I know this, because he kept a journal, which my uncle has lent me.

They evaded two likely robbery attempts, and enjoyed free meals from curious folks along the way.  They hunted, fished, rode horses and slept under the stars.  One shot himself in the foot while trying to draw on a rabbit, and once, near the end of the trip, two of them had a bare-knuckled brawl.  In many towns out west there were more “Indians” than anyone else, and they observed a bank robber caught by cowboys before he could escape on horseback. Tough guy that he was, my grandfather wrote his mother regularly, describing their adventures, asking for money and enclosing pressed wildflowers. 

“I would not go by train if they gave me free rides both ways.
We have lived and seen life in its rawest phases and have lived each state as it came along.
We have been right with nature and also have seen real life among all classes of people.”

— F. Marsh, ‘somewhere between Meadow and Chugwater Wyoming’, July 19, 1921

An avid birder and naturalist, he carefully recorded his sightings: “many big red headed woodpeckers” in Ohio, Illinois “full of small screech owls”, “hundreds of wild pigeons and red headed woodpeckers” in Iowa, “villages of prairie dogs”, elk, beaver, bear, a badger, a pine marten (weasel), various ducks, whiskey jacks, flocks of “blue and spruce” grouse, yellowlegs, “flocks of whippoorwills” and a wolverine in Wyoming (with deep snow in August at 10,000’). Several of these species are no longer seen where he saw them. They spent a month camping in Wyoming and neighboring states and also stopped in many of the same places I’ve been: Seneca Falls, Indiana Dunes, Devil’s Tower, Mt Rushmore, along the Oregon Trail, the Custer battlefield, Wind Cave, the Badlands and Yellowstone.

The trip changed my grandfather. By the end of his journal, his writing is a bit bolder, more confident and even defiant. The adversity, rough roads, lack of funds, gruff humor and necessity of keeping in good spirits while solving practical problems creatively, must have changed all three friends for the better (despite the fisticuffs). 30 years later, he took his two kids across country on another epic journey recorded by my uncle. Another 20 years after that, and he was still telling great stories and reading The Roosevelt Bears (see photo) to me and my siblings.

On this Father’s Day, I’m thinking of my Dad, who either took me or sent me on field trips as a kid to almost every park in New England and many more on the way down to DC. He got along great with his father-in-law, and they loved sharing stories and laughing. For them, adventures were one of the most important parts of life, and I wish I had told them more how much they inspired me to see the world and learn. So, if you have the chance to tell your father (or any father-figure for you) how they have inspired you to be better, then please do so. Thanks.