It has been a hectic week–like most weeks are. Travel to meetings. Sit for hours listening to a variety of presentations. Picking up some ideas that will be useful for my job as a writer and editor. Travel means meals in restaurants and of course the overnights in hotel rooms. It is part of the job and it keeps an entire industry going.

The highlight of the week was a spot on the Wabash River in western Indiana–a place called Vincennes. We reached the town near sunset after a day that began at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and took us across Illinois on a journey with the Clark family–George Rogers and William.

Debbie and I were with life long friends Robin and Susan Webber for the World News and Prophecy seminar in Fariview Heights, Illinois. On Sunday we took them across the river to the Gateway Arch and the museum of westward expansion that goes with it. Exhibits and films tell the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806. This is a great story of exploration that never grows old in its telling. Some would rank it the number one story of American history.

The Clark family holds a singular place for providing two brothers of high stature. William’s older brother, George, had made his own mark on history twenty five years earlier when in 1779 he led a band of frontiersmen from the Mississippi River across a cold and wet land to the banks of Wabash to surprise and take Fort Sackville from the British and thereby secure America’s claim to the Northwest Territory. It was the single largest seizure of land in modern military history, and it ended British rule in the territory.

A simple memorial on the Wabash in Vincennes commemorates this great achievement. Standing there as the sun went down we absorbed a bit of the story, touched a piece of history and wondered at the courage and bravery of men who put life on the line with little understanding of the legacy they were creating. Great achievements are not usually appreciated for years after the event. In time they are forgotten. this memorial is one that all Americans should understand.