Friday June 13 – A very busy day, lefrt St. Charles of 8:00 a.m. and made our lunch stop at Arrow Rock. This quaint old town on the Missouri was known by the French of 1804 as Pierre a Flesch. Rock of the arrows. It is on a limestone bluff with a great deal of flint, which the local natives used to tip their arrows. Kathy gave us a great talk about the town, the river, and our particular heroes, She used very appropriate and evocative readings from the Journals of Lewis and Clark.
 

Near here their boat was almost swamped, but saved by the men’s quick action. Clark said: “I can Say with Confidence that our party is not inferior to any that was ever on the waters of the Mississippi” (Moulton 2, 289). They were becoming a team. And here’s our team snapping pictures of the river below us.
Using their example we are rotating certain duties to get the feel of how they operated. Each day, on a rotating basis, one of the sergeants was in charge of getting the party to return from hunting. This was often done with a Soundenhorn. Here is our first “Sergeant in the middle of the boat”, Jake Early, with our Soundenhorn, signaling the end of the tour at Fort Osage.

Madeline & Carter Childs served as Color Guard today, carrying our own 15 star, 15 stripe flag into the same areas L&C brought the flag 200 years ago. We also got into more modern history with a visit to the Truman LIbrary

 

 

 

 

 

 

Natural History by Bob and Evie Eisenhard

Following Lewis’s example, we are listing bird sightings along the trail. Starting today, June 13, we have identified 12 species common to the area. Six of them were spotted along the bluff at Arrow Rock State Historic Site along the Missouri traveled by Lewis and Clark. Two birds sighted during lunch break today were a flashy Baltimore Oriole and a tail-bobbing Eastern Phoebe.
After dinner the day was capped off by Jim “Two Crows” Wallen, and extremely knowledgable and lively storyteller. His program showed how 19th century fur trappers lived and died (mostly died) out in the mountains. He gave each man an item that a trapper would depend on for life, then showed how the very same items could contribute to their death. Would you believe that he gave Jake Early a horn to blow. Magic happens!