Bob and Dick’s cross-country expedition

Robert and Richard’s cross-country expedition carried the community’s curiosity beyond its familiar roads and brought back both knowledge and a small box of seeds. Planned in the wake of the water crisis, the journey was meant to find other survivor communities and discover how they were rebuilding; its early return revealed the distances, dangers, and environmental changes that limited such contact. Though the travelers did not complete a transcontinental crossing, their account made the post-disaster continent less abstract to Ish and gave the community a tangible link to another way of life.

Origins and Preparation

The expedition grew out of a discussion about the community’s failure to explore even the area around its reservoir. Ish had offered the idea without expecting it to seize the group’s imagination, but the prospect of going somewhere and seeing what had become of the wider world quickly gathered support. He joined that enthusiasm, which offered a way to break the community’s lethargy. He also wondered whether the United States Government might have survived or been reconstituted, and whether people from the West Coast could make contact with it; this remained a possibility in Ish’s mind, not a result the expedition established.

Almost everyone wanted to go, but the community had to decide who could safely leave. Ish was ruled out because of the lasting disability from the mountain-lion attack in the Year of the Lions. George was considered too old, and Ezra, despite arguing vigorously, was judged the least capable of caring for himself in the open. The younger men who had wives and small children were not selected. The final choice was Robert and Richard, whose mothers, Em and Molly, were doubtful about the separation even as the meeting’s enthusiasm carried the decision. The two young men were delighted to go.

Ish planned a route eastward through the more open country to the south. The roads across the Sierra Nevada and to the north seemed likely to be blocked by fallen trees and landslides; the desert roads might remain passable. He considered the uncertainty of the Colorado River bridges, the mountains beyond them, the Rio Grande at Albuquerque, and the possibilities of reaching the Missouri or Mississippi. His instructions went beyond following a route: Robert and Richard were to look for communities, not merely isolated survivors, and observe how other groups were meeting their problems and getting started again.

The departure was set for the fourth day, before the excitement could fade. Ish had Robert and Richard practice driving and showed them how to replace parts, including a fuel pump and a coil. They also gathered spare equipment and drove the vehicle repeatedly, using blowouts to identify tires that might withstand the journey. On the fourth day, Robert and Richard left in The jeep with an extra battery, tires, and other equipment. Their mothers were close to tears, while Ish, unable to go because of his injury, was nervous with the desire to accompany them.

The Route and the Communities

The travelers first reached Los Angeles. The highway south had only minor washouts and landslides that The jeep could negotiate in four-wheel drive. In Los Angeles they encountered a religious community whose members wore white nightgowns and called themselves the People of God. Ish inferred that a strong surviving leader might have shaped their religious focus, contrasting it with the Tribe’s relative lack of interest in religion. The group’s existence showed that survivors had formed communities with sharply different organizing principles.

From Los Angeles, Robert and Richard followed U.S. Route 66 east across the desert. The highway was generally open, though sand had blown over sections and the travelers suffered occasional blowouts. The bridge over the Colorado River was shaky but passable. Near the Rio Grande, they found another community at an old pueblo. From the travelers’ description, Ish understood that it numbered only a few dozen people and followed a way of life centered on growing corn and beans, which he associated with Pueblo practice. Only some of the older people spoke English. They kept to themselves and looked suspiciously on strangers; they had horses, did not use automobiles, and rarely went into town.

Robert and Richard then turned north toward Denver and continued east across the plains. The farther they went into wetter country, the more difficult the roads became. Rain and winter frost broke the highway into large sections; grass, weeds, bushes, and young trees grew through cracks and obstructed the way. The travelers had to use an ax or shovel to clear passages through fallen timber, and the labor wore them down. The journey thus showed not only that routes were physically deteriorating, but that travel depended on sustained manual work rather than the assumed convenience of the old road network.

They crossed what had once been Iowa and reached the Mississippi River, whose bridge was still in good condition. Chicago, however, was deserted, its streets an empty urban landscape. Ish thought the city would be inhospitable when winter winds swept in from Lake Michigan and saw its emptiness as evidence that people had dispersed to places more suitable to survival. The expedition’s account contrasted surviving infrastructure, such as the river bridge, with the disappearance of the population and the gradual encroachment of vegetation.

Return and Immediate Consequences

The travelers did not continue toward the East Coast. Somewhere probably near Toledo, they turned back. Cold weather and a north wind had made them afraid, and they worried that snow might prevent them from getting home. Heavy rains then flooded roads, raising the possibility that bridges over larger rivers could be washed away and leave them cut off. They retraced their route, reassured by reaching places they already knew. Their return journey taught them little that they had not learned while traveling east, but it brought them home safely.

Ish did not blame Robert and Richard for turning back. He considered their conduct determined and intelligent, and blamed himself for directing them toward Chicago and New York, the great cities of the Old Times. He wondered whether a southern route toward Houston and New Orleans would have served them better, while recognizing that floods and faster vegetation growth might have made Arkansas and Louisiana impassable sooner than Iowa and Illinois. His judgment remained conditional: the expedition had provided evidence about particular routes, not enough to settle what a different route would have yielded.

The community first learned of their return through the sound of a horn. Ish was teaching Joey with coins when he heard the familiar toot; he called for Em and rushed outside with the family. The jeep was dirty, battered, and travel-worn, but it had made it back. After a bonfire and celebration, the travelers described the settlements and roads they had encountered. Their account confirmed that other communities existed, while also showing how distance, suspicion, weather, and changing terrain kept survivors isolated from one another.

Seeds and Longer Afterlife

Among the expedition’s most consequential returns was a small cardboard box from the community near the Rio Grande. Ish had known what it contained but, amid the rapid events at home, had not yet examined it. When he finally opened it, he found small, pointed kernels colored red and black, unlike the large yellow or white corn he had expected. He recognized them as a more primitive kind of corn, consistent with the variety raised by the Pueblo community. The seeds gave a material form to what the expedition had learned: another community had preserved cultivation, and its crops differed from the familiar varieties of the Old Times.

In later years, the Tribe grew a small quantity of corn—enough to harvest a modest crop and keep the seed alive. The record does not make the expedition the sole cause of that later practice, but the kernels it brought home connected the Tribe’s experiments with cultivation to knowledge encountered elsewhere. The journey’s reach was therefore greater than its mileage. Robert and Richard returned before crossing the continent, yet they brought back observations of distinct social arrangements, a clearer sense of the altered landscape, and seeds that could be preserved for the future.