and then again...

A somber sort of thrill it was, driving 'cross the Missouri, the Mississippi and the Wabash and the Kaskaskia Rivers. And the Ohio, stealing glimpses of that wide expanse of pale pewter while maintaining my lane, thinking of all of those long-gone river travelers. Dan'l Boone. Lewis & Clark. I remember painting a picture of the Lincolns crossing over to Indiana in 1816. Can't help thinking of a flotilla of dugouts, canoes, flatboats, rafts, keelboats, and steamboats. Oars and paddle wheels, cutting, rippling, churning. All those trapped in bondage, busting to cross the Ohio to get to the free land on the other side.