Imagine a world where you travel for twenty-eight months, cover over 8,000 miles, discover hundreds of previously unknown plants, animals and geographic oddities, and when you get back home you are still four days away from the nearest post office. Then imagine that your first report back to your boss in over a year takes 30 days from the time you sent it to the time it's read.

That's the world of Meriwether Lewis in the first decade of the 19th century. Lewis arrived in St. Louis after nearly three years away from civilization. His first question once hitting town was "when is the next post?" The answer received was that the post had just been sent the day before and there wouldn't be another for nearly a week. He sent ahead to Indiana to have the Post Master at the nearest office hold the mail. He had to compose a letter to his boss, President Thomas Jefferson, to let him know that the little group Lewis and Clark travelled to the mouth of the Columbia river and back, the Corp of Discovery, had returned safely.

All of this information is contained in Stephen E. Ambrose's book "Undaunted Courage". What a great read. I picked up the book at the Salt Lake Airport on my way to Boston a couple of weeks ago. I just finished it today. This book has captured my imagination. For most of my life I've known about Meriwether Lewis. But I always thought of him as lewisandclark. Just two guys who explored the west.

Ambrose turns Lewis into a real person with strengths, weaknesses, ambitions, successes and failures. He describes the preparation and luck that turned the Lewis and Clark expedition into a fantastically successful adventure that captured the imagination of all America and sent the Spanish, French and English on explorations of their own to stop the expansion of the United States. Ambrose shows the all-too-human Lewis as a competent leader who tasted too much success too early in life. The ending was both sad and surprising. The Lewis legacy lives on far beyond the life of the man.

Get the book. It's worth your time............
10:16:47 PM    comment []