A Thousand Sunsets
"Right joyful was I, after nine days of delay and disappointment, to find myself fully equipped and actually started on a journey which, though it appeared before me as mysterious and unknown as the journey to "the land of the hereafter," yet thrilled my soul with rapture. Never while my mind endures shall be taken from the art gallery of my soul the picture that met my face as we topped the first elevation and looked over that expanse of country–that boundless, undulating prairie–and never shall my soul forget that peculiar and indescribable rapture it experienced when I realized for the first time that I had passed beyond the bounds of civilization– beyond the permanent abodes of man– and was about to traverse a region where Nature alone had displayed her handiwork. My soul swelled as I gazed and my blood went thrilling through its channels. I was always an admirer of sunsets, but this to me was the sublimest I had ever witnessed as Sol slowly descended and at last sunk, as it were, into the bosom of the great prairie."
William Smedley
May 22nd 1862
"Across the Plains"
I don't know if my love for sunsets is genetic or conditioned, but my father and I always shared a special admiration for the last few minutes of the day. Sometimes when we weren’t together we would call each other if one of us witnessed a particularly good one. Whether watching one over the rocky mountains, the plains of Indiana, or over the pacific ocean there is something awe-inspiring yet comforting knowing the same sun is looking down on us. How many sunsets did William experience over those same plains, mountains, and ocean?
As I think back to what William saw that first day; the open expanse over the horns of his oxen to that first sunset on the prairie, rapture seems like a fitting description. A young man with nothing but adventure before him, at what point did the nostalgia wear off and the weariness of the road set in? What mountaintops did he reach only to see a deep valley before him? I hope that in the adventures before me and my young family, I can have the resolve and short memory William had. To press forward through adversity and to look back and enjoy the road behind.
Eight years after his original travels in 1862, William took a train across the country, that journey probably lasted three days. Consider that next to his 5-month journey. Did he feel like it was all a waste, or did he look at the passing landscape with fondness? This time on his road has let me wrestle with my own past and future. To ponder the mystery and unknown.
I thank God for the roads William traveled, and the people and places he experienced. The same is true for my grandfather, Chuck, and my father Tom. Someday my son, Emmett, will have the world in front of him. I hope he calls me when he sees a pretty sunset.