Oregon Trail Flight

[N777BH]

This summer we plan to fly the route of the Oregon Trial. I would
appreciate airport and sight suggestions.

[john smith]

N777BH wrote:
> This summer we plan to fly the route of the Oregon Trial. I would
> appreciate airport and sight suggestions.

I was thinking about that, also.
I was going to use the Lewis and Clark trail for the routing.

[C J Campbell]

Must be some disease going around. I was also thinking of something
similar -- flying the Mormon pioneer trail.

[Bob Fry]

I'm feeling philosophical tonight.

The topic got me to thinking, wonder what those pioneers would have
thought that, in the lifetime of the younger ones, people could travel
their same routes in days or even hours instead of months, in a
personal flying machine. Pretty amazing when you think about it, and
when I do I'm damn grateful to be living at this time, in this place.

My grandfather, born in 1878, grew up literally with horses and
buggies. He died in 1970, just long enough to see man land on the
moon. Would he have thought he would see that as a young man, say at
age 20? I can't believe so. What an amazing age, and more to
come...if fundamentalist nut-cases don't do us in.

[Jay Honeck]

> My grandfather, born in 1878, grew up literally with horses and
> buggies. He died in 1970, just long enough to see man land on the
> moon.

My grand-folks, too. What an amazing period to be alive!

Start with horse and buggy, oil lamps and anvils.

Suddenly the automobile and flying machines come on the scene.

Then rural electrification...

Then interstate highways...

Then nuclear power...

Then men on the moon.

Then computers and the internet...

What's next?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[john smith]

john smith wrote:
> N777BH wrote:
>
>> This summer we plan to fly the route of the Oregon Trial. I would
>> appreciate airport and sight suggestions.
>
>
> I was thinking about that, also.
> I was going to use the Lewis and Clark trail for the routing.

What are you flying?
I would be flying a 1945 Aeronca Champ. (Low and Slow!!!) ;-))

[C J Campbell]

"Bob Fry" > wrote in message
...
>
> My grandfather, born in 1878, grew up literally with horses and
> buggies. He died in 1970, just long enough to see man land on the
> moon. Would he have thought he would see that as a young man, say at
> age 20? I can't believe so. What an amazing age, and more to
> come...if fundamentalist nut-cases don't do us in.

My great grandfather Eli was born on March 20, 1859 and walked from Iowa
City, Iowa to Ogden, Utah when he was less than three years old. The Civil
War was at its height. He died in Annis, Idaho in 1952.

The land that Eli walked across was barren wasteland and open prairie. Most
of the forts and outposts had been burned. Only elite cavalry units in the
Union armies had repeating rifles. Otherwise the land he walked across was
little different from how Lewis and Clarke found it. An eastern Idaho
author, Vardis Fisher, wrote novels about the era and what life was like
there. The McGrath family in the Vridar Hunter novels is a thinly disguised
reference to the Campbells who apparently made life miserable for him. The
Fisher family, of course, were renamed "Hunter" in the novels. They were a
rough lot in those days. Fisher's contemporaries did not deny that things
were pretty much the way Vardis described them (from a certain point of
view), but they considered him to be an insufferable whiner, richly
deserving of whatever torment they could inflict on him. Most of the
incidents in the novels are described fairly accurately as they happened in
life.

My grandfather, Wallace (a.k.a. "Mickey," his real nickname and the one he
kept in the Fisher stories), was born in 1893 in Lewisville, ID. There was
regular freight service (by wagon) and the mail came fairly regularly.
Indian attacks were still considered possible. Many rivers still did not
have bridges. He raised his nine children in a small stone house with a dirt
floor. The privy was located next to the water pump. Most of his children
suffered from rheumatic fever and many of them later had heart trouble
because of it. One of his sons, Rex, was one of the very first recipients of
a pacemaker.

Wallace died in 1977, having lived from the days of range wars and horse and
buggies to the space shuttle and the beginnings of personal computers. He
had a college degree (rare for his generation), farmed in Idaho, hauled
freight by wagon, ran a gas station and post office, helped build the
nuclear facility at Hanford (he was blindfolded every day and driven to the
site), and finally retired from working at for a petroleum distributor.
Three days before he died he sang Maori lullabies to my new-born son, having
been a missionary in New Zealand almost a hundred years ago.

I have met descendants of the Maori chief who befriended him and virtually
adopted him, giving him gifts of cowry shells, a stingray tail to keep his
future wife in line, and a jadeite war club (now on display at the Idaho
Museum of History in Boise). They tell me that the chief spoke fondly of my
grandfather all of his life and told stories about him to all his own
children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. This chief bragged that he
had been a fierce cannibal, having eaten the hearts of many men, but that my
grandfather had taught him the way of peace. Neither his descendants nor I
completely believed all that, but my grandfather certainly did. Perhaps the
old guy was really like that once upon a time.

I think the days of those men were so different that they may as well have
come from another planet.

[Jay Honeck]

> I think the days of those men were so different that they may as well have
> come from another planet.

Well put.

You've just got to wonder if this rate of change can continue, or if it will
eventually tear the fabric of society apart?

Of course, looking at what's happening in the Middle East, you could make an
argument that it's already begun.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Big John]

Jay

Go read Drudge today. They are forecasting the end of the world as we
know it in 20 years.

May not be any GA if forecasts come true :o(

Big John

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:08:53 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
> wrote:

>> My grandfather, born in 1878, grew up literally with horses and
>> buggies. He died in 1970, just long enough to see man land on the
>> moon.
>
>My grand-folks, too. What an amazing period to be alive!
>
>Start with horse and buggy, oil lamps and anvils.
>
>Suddenly the automobile and flying machines come on the scene.
>
>Then rural electrification...
>
>Then interstate highways...
>
>Then nuclear power...
>
>Then men on the moon.
>
>Then computers and the internet...
>
>What's next?

[Jay Honeck]

> Go read Drudge today. They are forecasting the end of the world as we
> know it in 20 years.

There is always someone predicting the end of the world.

Remember "The Year 2000"? The Second Coming? Armageddon?

Personally, I have faith that there are enough people in this world who
believe in our way of life, and are willing to protect it at all costs.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[John Galban]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message news:<VPn_b.385889$na.593019@attbi_s04>...
<snip>
> Then rural electrification...
>
> Then interstate highways...
>
> Then nuclear power...
>
> Then men on the moon.
>
> Then computers and the internet...
>
> What's next?

You left out some of the changes that would have surprised old
Grandpa the most :

Water that you can buy in a plastic bottle (for more per gallon than
gasoline or milk).

A $5 cup of coffee.

John Galban=====>N4BQ (PA28-180)

[Jay Honeck]

> You left out some of the changes that would have surprised old
> Grandpa the most :
> Water that you can buy in a plastic bottle (for more per gallon than
> gasoline or milk).

I tried to omit the obviously ignorant things...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> You left out some of the changes that would have surprised old
> Grandpa the most :
> Water that you can buy in a plastic bottle (for more per gallon than
> gasoline or milk).

I tried to omit the obviously ignorant things...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Tom Sixkiller]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:5bs_b.248897$U%5.1715962@attbi_s03...
> > Go read Drudge today. They are forecasting the end of the world as we
> > know it in 20 years.
>
> There is always someone predicting the end of the world.
>
> Remember "The Year 2000"? The Second Coming? Armageddon?

Hell, remember Paul Erlich and the Club of Rome.

> Personally, I have faith that there are enough people in this world who
> believe in our way of life, and are willing to protect it at all costs.

They are too few, too weak, and too far between.

[Tom Sixkiller]

"John Galban" > wrote in message
om...
> "Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
news:<VPn_b.385889$na.593019@attbi_s04>...
> <snip>
> > Then rural electrification...
> >
> > Then interstate highways...
> >
> > Then nuclear power...
> >
> > Then men on the moon.
> >
> > Then computers and the internet...
> >
> > What's next?
>
> You left out some of the changes that would have surprised old
> Grandpa the most :
>
> Water that you can buy in a plastic bottle (for more per gallon than
> gasoline or milk).
>
> A $5 cup of coffee.
>

Women wearing skirts above the knee...

[Bob Fry]

"Tom Sixkiller" > writes:

> Women wearing skirts above the knee...

That would've been Gramp's favorite...