‘IT IS THE JOURNEY THAT MATTERS’



Glacier National Park, Montana

            I’ve dreamed about goin’ ‘out west’ most all my life, and recently I was invited to fly out to Montana next summer and spend a week explorin’ Glacier National Park with my daughter and some friends. I’ve yet to decide for sure whether I’ll go, or not. You see, I’ve always dreamed of seein’ the West… but, at ground level, not from a jet airplane 30,000-feet up.

Maybe it’s the historian in me or better yet, the fact that I’m a hopeless romantic, but experiencin' the journey itself is almost as important to me as is reachin' the final destination.

I’d like to cross the mighty Mississipp’ there at St. Louie, the jumpin'-off-place for 19^th Century adventurers and pioneers headin' out into the western lands. I want to travel mile-upon-mile across the prairies of Nebraska, through the arid sagebrush-covered flats of Wyoming, and over the rollin' plains of Montana, to see what the hardy pioneers and the grizzled ol’ mountain men saw, be awed as they most surely were, as well as, to travel along at my own leisurely pace so as to stop and see the much heralded points of interest along the way. Things such as the World’s Largest Ball of Twine and Carhenge to name just a couple.

'The Waterfall Room', Glacier NP



And, as much as I want to pull a fine Cutthroat Trout from one of Glacier Park’s many pristine streams, feel the spray on my skin from inside The Waterfall Room, and walk within mere yards of a mountain goat along the Continental Divide, I equally wanna smell the musty, earthiness of a prairie ‘sod house’, watch a shaggy ol’ buffalo bull wallow in the dust, and see pronghorn antelope bound effortlessly across the short-grass prairie. I want to follow the steel ribbons across Nebraska that was once the ‘Transcontinental Railroad’, stop and wade the amazingly shallow Platte River, and walk the still visible ruts of the old Oregon Trail.

Ulm Pishkun Buffalo Jump, near Great Falls, Montana



I’d like to sit in the warm sunshine, on a grassy bank of the Missouri River, reading from Ambrose’s UNDAUNTED COURAGE, imaginin’ Lewis and Clark paddlin’ past that very spot some 200-years ago, or stand at the edge of the Ulm Pishkun with the wind in my face, imagining the yells of Indian braves, the thunderin' hoof beats of a herd of bison as they are stampeded off the bluff, and the awful carnage at the base of the cliff where the animals lay broken and dyin' as the squaws set to work butcherin’ their mass kill.

'Carhenge'



And after a week of burnin' muscles and callused and sore feet from hikin' the high mountain trails of Glacier, instead of takin' a rental car back to the airport, I’d rather take the backroads home, stoppin' to explore the Blackfoot and Cheyenne Indian Reservations and watch gaily dressed tribal members perform elaborate fancy dances. I’d choose to walk along the hillside above the Little Bighorn, reflectin' on what a sight it must’ve been to behold the largest Indian encampment ever gathered in one place, any day, over a quick trip home via American Airways.

I want to look straight up from the foot of the Devil’s Tower and feel incredibly insignificant, and stand at the Medicine Wheel, high up in the Bighorn Mountains, hopin' for a vision much like the Indian medicine men of old came here to get. I’d swing through South Dakota to see Teddy Roosevelt’s beloved Badlands, then cross the infamous Black Hills to see his likeness on the side of Mount Rushmore.

          No, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that experiencin’ every aspect; every mile of the trip in real time, much like those who opened up the West did (sans the whole covered wagon, hostile Indians, and months of hardship-thing), would definitely be much more enjoyable than seein' the West for the first time from high up in the sky.

Nebraska prairie



Ernest Hemingway once said that “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”  I do believe I’ll have to agree with the ol’ rum-swillin’ bastard on this one.  J