First Stop

From St. Charles, Missouri, the "Corps of Discovery" followed the Mississippi to their first stop — La Charette, the last Euro-American settlement on the Missouri River. 

So many people told us that we would have more junk than we realized when we started packing - that we would have boxes on boxes of stuff we didn't know we even had. But we didn't believe them. We're young and stuff. We don't have that much. Turns out, you can actually fit a lot more junk into a one-bedroom apartment than we realized we could and, well, all those "so many people" were right. Unfortunately, packing it all up took HOURS longer than we had anticipated.  When we expected to leave town at 3pm, we ended up heading out at 11:00pm with a 6 hour drive in front of us. Which we thought would be fine because, after all, we're young and stuff.

We arrived in Northern California at Clark's parent's home, the last Hedrick settlement on the Lizzie and Clark expedition, sometime during sunrise the next day. We slept solid till afternoon. Then took a nap.

Here are some pictures from the first stop of our expedition:

After all that packing up, the next obvious thing to do was to unpack some old memories. Clark found some pretty neat stuff in his parent's garage. Including some beloved stuffed animals, a "why we love Clark" poster, and a letterman's jacket.

What a stud!

We played games with his family. This one was Yahtzee. Clark won, per usual. Andrei shared candy.

Clark's dad makes some of the most amazing meals! This meal included duck sausage with onions and bell peppers. The night before this, we had antelope burgers fondly known as "boygas" (which took me far too long to figure out what they were saying...).

Somebody, who shall remain nameless, clearly didn't do a good job of making sure she made it into pictures. Don't worry mom, they'll be here with the next post!

Casting Off

On May 14, 1804, William Clark and just over 45 members of the "Corps of Discovery" cast off from Camp Dubois, where Clark had guided the training and preparations of this team just off the Mississippi River. They met up with Captain Meriwether Lewis a week later in St. Charles, Missouri, officially beginning the voyage of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Coast. 


In a matter of 24 hours, Clark and I are now homeless, jobless, car-less, and have all of our belongings packed into 1 rental car and 2 very small U-boxes somewhere in the middle of the Orange County. We have officially cast off onto perhaps the biggest adventure of our lives. It all happened so fast, I've hardly had a chance to take it all in. We ended our last day of work, packed up our little 1 bedroom apartment, sold our cars, and said our goodbyes - to people, places, and our regular way of life.

Goodbyes are always the hardest. But I'm going to go ahead and say my goodbye at work was more eerie than it was hard. I stayed late that last day to finish up all that I could. By the time I left, all my co-workers had already gone home, the office was silent, and the lights had already started to turn off. Not a single person was left in the whole upper hall. I packed up my few belongings, sent my last email, turned off my computer, and headed out by myself. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but that was weird.

And now I'm unemployed. And that's weird too.

People talk about big transitions and life changes and how they are like "new chapters" in the book of life. It's a little hard to feel that way when I think instead that a whole book just ended and I'm starting a brand new book. Or maybe I'm not even in a book anymore. I don't really know. I'm just... here.

I suppose that the original Lewis and Clark never felt this way on their cross-country expedition. Where Meriwether and William were paid to explore, we're paying to explore... to be paid once we eventually land... well, after we finish school...

Ours is a much longer story. And more complicated.

Here's a pic of some of the packing commotion. This is before the apartment was completely bare.

Unfortunately, this is the only pic I have. I was pretty bad about remembering to take more pictures. Not to worry, though. This will change as we continue this once-in-a-lifetime expedition across the country.

Preparations

In October 1803 and by the commissioning of President Thomas Jefferson, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark met for the first time to begin enlisting participants for the "Corps of Discovery," which would later become known as "The Lewis and Clark Expedition."


Ten years ago, my history teacher told the class that I would be the President some day. THE President — as in, the one in Washington D.C. And when my 8th grade class took a field trip to the capital, my classmates assigned themselves jobs as my future body guards, Air Force One pilot, Executive Secretary, and, yes, even my Official Step-Stool Holder.

Fast forward 7 years and I meet a (very good-looking) man who tells me that his teachers and classmates always said he would be the President one day. THE President. From that moment on, it was war. Naturally, we fell in love and got married.

So when my husband began applying to law schools, Washington DC was the obvious preferred location — for him, education, and for me, opportunity to begin world-take-over.

Humor aside, after months of praying, discussing, wisdom-seeking, and more discussing, we are thrilled (albeit, a bit nervous) to make this big transition in just a few weeks. We know that God has been guiding our every step and we are confident that He will continue to go before us.

... And thus begins the Lizzie and Clark Expedition!