After the Rendezvous

First touchdown on the great plains -- Chicago.  Not much of the old west here, at old O'Hare, though I was treated to a good view of a plane from Frontier Airlines, so that was an auspicious start.  Not only that, there were two Indians in the departure lounge for the next flight, to Kansas City, only one of them was wearing a sari, so that didn't count.  On the other hand there was someone else in a big black cross between a cowboy hat and a sombrero, with a moustache to match, so I knew we were headed in the right direction. 

Then on to another plane for the hour flight to Kansas City, an uneventful if bumpy ride through tall thunderheads building up in the sultry sky with many miles of Missouri and Kansas spread out below us, a largely tamed landscape, with only the old watercourses of the Missouri River, the Kansas River and the Little Blue giving us a hint of the landscape crossed by the early pioneers. 

And there in the arrivals hall, awaiting my appearance as he had been for several hours, was brother James, looking distinguished in his straw pork pie hat.  He was ready to hit the trail, having walked the length of the airport concourse more times than he could count and sampled something from all the food vendors he could stomach.  We grabbed my bag and got over to the Hertz desk to see what they had in the way of wagons, and found not a station wagon with wood on the sides, but a respectable Toyota Carolla, built for service if not for speed and style.  We shunned the Satnav--how could we follow in those footsteps with that bumptious lady telling us every twist and turn?  It was unthinkable.

From the rolling wooded hills on the east side of the Missouri, we followed the major roads west to our first stop, Topeka Kansas, where we began to see hints of the great plains which so impressed the pioneers, where they would be trespassers on Indian lands, beyond the protection of the government--no shops, hospitals, or laws.  They were in a land with no second chances.
 

 As one of them put it in 'The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California,
'Here we were, without law, without order, and without restraint, in a state of nature...Some were sad, while others were merry; and while the brave doubted, the timid trembled'
But they had been told by newspaper editor, John L. O'Sullivan, 'We are the nation of human progress and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march?  Providence is with us and no earthly power can'.  He later shortened this to proclaim that it was 'Our Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent alloted by providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.'  That's been the line around here ever since.

'Setting up camp' in the dusk, surrounded by the screeching of the cicadas, we'll head down to the chuck wagon to recruit ourselves with a local beverage or two... while the big Muddy Missouri and the Kansas River are still rolling along, with the traffic roaring over them in a way that would have baffled our pioneers.