Friday, August 24

     Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.

      On this day in 1804, Sergeant Charles Floyd died of appendicitis near present day Sioux City Iowa. He is the only member of the Lewis and Clark expedition to die during the journey, which is incredible considering the hardships the company endured during the two years it traveled to the Pacific and back.
     Floyd was born in 1782, location unknown. He was a cousin of Virginia governor John Floyd and was possibly related to William Clark himself. Details are often sketchy for history's minor characters. The expedition left the St. Louis area on May 14, 1804. On July 31, Floyd wrote in his diary that he had been very sick, but was now feeling better. But his condition worsened and he died on August 24. A funeral was held and Floyd was buried on a bluff named in his honor overlooking the Missouri River.
     Floyd's journal was published in 1894 which increased interest in him to the point that his grave marker was stolen. It was replaced with a 100 foot tall obelisk which has proved to be thief-proof.
     During one of our jaunts around the Midwest to gather information for Raven stories, my editor Mr. Reynolds and I found ourselves in Sioux City, Iowa. My middle son Joe was also along. We gravitated to the river and found a large decommissioned Army Corps of Engineers towboat, the Sergeant Floyd, now a museum and welcome center for the city and the tri-state area.
    After touring the tug, the curator asked us if we were part of the reenactors festival taking place down the road. Did we look that rough, we wondered. We drove a few miles to the reenactors site. There were dozens of people dressed in buckskins and camping in tipis. They tried to live for the weekend as authentically as possible, though one reenactor showed us his stash of Diet Coke in a buckskin covered cooler. Lots of these people were selling crafts and Joe asked me to buy him a tomahawk, which I did. It's still in the garage if he's interested.
     We crossed the bridge into Nebraska just to say we did, then headed north on another bridge into South Dakota. It was a blazing hot Sunday afternoon and I had no air conditioning in my vehicle. We stopped in the town of Gregory to take a break. There was an extensive outhouse museum on the edge of town which we should have visited, but we just weren't in the mood. We contented ourselves instead with plucking tall cans of beer from an ice-filled bucket just inside the door of the convenience store. South Dakota has very strict drunk driving laws, but they also believe in living free.
     We were tenting on this trip and started looking for a place to camp, but all the surrounding country was composed of steep hills. It was full dark when we reached a little town along Interstate 90. Steve was disgusted when I pulled into the city campground. This was not his idea of camping, but hey, it was free and we had the place to ourselves.
    Next morning Steve bought a DeLorme atlas of backroads South Dakota at the local gas station. We also made a poor breakfast there of coffee and donuts and thought of Sergeant Floyd. Using Steve's new atlas, we navigated the gravel roads up to Pierre, the state capital. We toured the excellent state historical museum. As we were leaving, the curator asked if we were in town for the Varmint Hunters' Convention. We realized we must be looking really rough.
     All in all it was a great trip, but it left us with a few regrets: missed the Sergeant Floyd National Memorial, missed the Gregory Outhouse Museum, and worst of all, missed the Varmint Hunters Convention, which is all fodder for future Almanac entries.
     Note: the Gregory Outhouse Museum has relocated to Colome SD. You can like it on FB.

Welcome aboard the Sergeant Floyd