Reading the Lewis & Clark Journals - living vicariously the Spirit of Adventure, the Charge by Jefferson, instructions, furnishing them with all manners of assistance, letters of credit against the US Government, in every way preparing for the success of the expedition. The purpose, of course, to have them report upon the newly acquired territories of the United States, and introduce the natives to their new government.
I was disappointed they didn't bring along a prospector.
Anyways, random thoughts inspired by the first volume:
The territory was unknown to them, but visited by a great many others, including Native Americans & French Fur Traders.
The reporting from outposts ever further from 'civilization' as they gradually leave behind the familiar and enter into the unknown.
The abundance of natural fruit (plums, cherries, etc), game (wolves, ferocious grizzly bears, bison herds in the tens of thousands), descriptions of now extinct (Carolina) parakeets, other species.
The idea of "Frontiers" - always personal, somebody, somewhere, some intelligence has always been before. "New" is always "New to Us".
That they travel with a vaccine against Smallpox - a lesser version of the pox that will build their immunity. "Vaccines" have been around for 1000's of years, so take that Anti-Vaxxers!!!
Noting that in their medicine chest almost every cure involves lead or mercury, the greater toxicity of which would hopefully suspend the ailment before killing the patient.
The descriptions of fossils weathering out - a "petrified fish skeleton some 45 feet long", that they are perpetually finding themselves much annoyed by ticks, mosquitos, blowflies, gnats, midges, and the countless biting flies of the prairies, of buffalo jumps, of all the wonders they passed upon the way - and then - the descriptions of what is now Montana - recognizing the landscapes - now largely tamed - Milk River, Great Falls, etc, and marvel at how we've brought under the plow so much, yet it hasn't in the least added to it's fertility. Following along the journals - looking forward to descriptions of the Black Hills and Yellowstone (but they will, I imagine, be covered in Volume 2 - the return home), the descriptions of the tribes and people they meet (not always kind, or through the appropriate cultural lens), the descriptions of their dress, habit, customs (for example, how they marvelled at Captain Lewis's Black Slave York, and the natives would all offer him up their wives for a time, in hopes of a more permanent souvenir of his visit), the realization (again) that we are so little ourselves and so much the culture within we are raised, the nods to Levi-Bruhl's "Primitive Mentality" - the ceremony to make a shield, by which the shield acquires a magical ability to repel all bullets and arrows, the mourning ceremonies - cutting of the hair, the severing of digits from the hand - symbols of immense antiquity and long out of mind. The more "Lascivious" portions described in Latin, ...
I could go on. It's travel through time and place to a world physically adjacent and yet very different. I followed along the journals with a map giving the dates they arrived at each location: https://www.nps.gov/lecl/planyourvisit/maps.htm
And if you can't find a hardcopy you can read the original's here: https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/journals/contents
My version is somewhat edited for clarity (2 volumes, 1000 pages), the originals are somewhat longer. No great prose, merely the thrill of discovery.