The sabbatical search for...?

So, my first blog post. Be patient; I'll get better as I go along. I'm starting out with a travelogue of my cross country camping trip out west, made possible by Western Kentucky University, which kindly rewarded my 8 years in the trenches as department head of the Department of Theatre and Dance with a (one semester) sabbatical. I do have a couple of creative projects in the works -more on those later- but for now, the focus of my musings will be the trip itself.

The idea is -was- to camp & fish my way from my home in Kentucky to the coastal community of Oceanside, Oregon, where my friends own a vacation home that they have VERY generously offered to me, to use as a "retreat" for my sabbatical. There's a lot of America in between Kentucky and the Oregon coast, and the route I'm taking is more-or-less improvisational, with this one constant as a guiding principle: a pilgrimage to sites connected to the demise of the Amerindian cultures that once lived in the land through which I will be traveling; the Lakota, Ponca, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow and Nez Pierce, to name just a few.

I say "was" the idea, because life happens as it will, heedless of my little desires and plans: not long ago my step father Ed Rodakowski, a talented (visual) artist and teacher, discovered he has been harboring a rare and very aggressive form of lung cancer, particularly dangerous because of its tendency to grow and metastasize asymptomatically- under the radar. Which it did; by the time it manifested symptoms, it had already spread widely throughout his body. So a trip to the VA in Minneapolis (he's a Viet-Nam vet) was in order first.

(My wife Mary Ann has created a Caring Bridge website for Ed; if you want to know more about his journey, navigate to http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/edwardrodakowski)

And then too, I underestimated two things; how much drive-time my decision to follow a non-freeway route would add to the trip, and how much drive-time I would loose doing this blog thing. Hopefully, as I learn more about "mobile blogging" from my iPhone, the impact of that second issue will diminish.

So, to catch up...

 (Otter, my assistant chronicler, on the hood of my '92 Toyota long bed sabbaticalmobile.)

(10:30 PM Friday 9/4/09) Finally broken orbit and on the road. First intended stay; Niobrara State Park in Nebraska, near the traditional homeland of the peaceful Ponca, the remnants of whom were force marched on foot 550 miles to "indian ...territory" in present day Oklahoma during the summer of 1877- it didn't work out very well for them. You've heard of "the Dred Scott decision"; look into the case of "Standing Bear vs. Crook".

(12:30 PM Saturday 9/5/09) Overslept at lake Wappapello; praise be the Huddle House diner off 67 in Leadington MO. On to the Haskell Indian Nations University outside Lawrence KS, then north to the confluence of the mighty Missouri & the Niabrara.

 (Couldn't resist: a little Branson wannabe in quaint but remote Steelville MO)

Well, I made it as far as the Best Western in Lawrence KS.  Still falling behind schedule, but showered and rested up, I'll be hitting the road soon- destination still Niabrara State Park in Northeastern Nebraska.  TTFN.