In 1852 this was a real adventure.
My great-grandfather embarked on an adventure almost 161
years ago to the day. With his bride of less than one month he climbed into a
covered wagon in Arkansas and joined the wagon train headed by Captain William
Johnson bound for California.
With two yoke of oxen, one wagon and equipment and
provisions John Guess and his wife Harriet Holifield Rogers left their Conway
County home on April 7,1852 and followed the Santa Fe Trail to its end in El
Monte, California.
In all there were eighty wagons and seventy well armed men.
The trip took seven months. Now all these years later I begin my own adventure
that will take me halfway around the world in 41 days. My how times have
changed.
I tip my cap to great-grandpa for passing on his genes for
wanderlust and adventure. Funny, I was born and grew up within just a couple of
miles from where his covered wagon finished the journey. Many years later in
1990 I would find myself living in St. Louis, Missouri not all that far from
Arkansas where my great-grandfather was raised and began his journey west to California.
Like my great-grandfather I too will be
encountering Indians, but mine will most likely not be Native Americans but
from India instead
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