Travelers' Rest

When you camp out in Montana, expect any kind of weather and you won't be surprised. A torrential rain storm kept us holed up in our tent for a few hours, followed by sunshine the next morning.

We're continuing to follow both the Nez Perce and Lewis and Clark over Lolo Pass. In early July 1806, the Corps of Discovery rested here for a few days before splitting up their group for the eastbound journey home. How do we know exactly where they camped? Well, historians have long known that the soldiers were supplied with "thunderbolts," a cure-all laxative laced with mercury, by Dr. Benjamin Rush (a signer of the Declaration of Independence thirty years earlier). Within the past few years archeologists discovered evidence of a latrine with high levels of... mercury. So they put two and two together. I never knew that being a historian meant digging around in 200 year-old poop.

I know that by today's standards Dr. Rush must seem like a quack, given his "cures." But just consider that 200 years from now Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy of the starship Enterprise will be saying the same thing about our modern medical methods.