CALHOUN, Ga.—Taking two 3-year-olds halfway across the country is easier than traveling with 13 grownups for 1,500 miles, even riding in three vehicles.
As a staff retreat, members of the Cherokee Nation tribal newspaper took a road trip to history, traveling east from Tahlequah, Okla., to visit areas significant to the Cherokees' past-Chattanooga, Tenn., New Echota, Ga., and Cherokee, N.C.
Only three of the travelers had visited the Cherokee historical sites before. Though uncomfortable at times, the trip was a special event, a fun and exciting experience. We drove from Oklahoma in three vehicles to accommodate us and all of our luggage. It was 785 miles one way from Tahlequah to Calhoun, Ga., site of the New Echota Historic Site and Museum and the farthest point east we visited.
I've been on only one other road trip my adult life. That was when I packed up my kids and my boyfriend in our tiny Neon and we drove to South Carolina two summers ago for my internship with the Associated Press.
This trip was harder.
Maybe it was because the 15-passenger van I rode in had very uncomfortable seats or maybe because we had to coordinate bathroom stops among 13 bladders. I don't know. Or it might have been the shoddy brakes on one of the vans that we had to get changed before the trek through the mountains, or even the fact that the air conditioner unit went out in the van I was riding in on the way home.
But it was fun because 13 coworkers who'd all been working at the Cherokee Phoenix for different lengths of time went on a trip together and by the time we returned home we were laughing and sharing jokes like we'd been friends for years. It was fun because we learned little habits about one another that we might not otherwise have known, such as someone gets car sick very easily and has to either drive or be able to see the road so as not to throw up. Or that someone snores very loudly. Or even the person who has that funny nickname that they share with the rest of us and we won't let it go the rest of the trip.
But despite the quirks and irks of the road trip itself, the destination was an awesome experience.
I was moved emotionally and culturally by all the historical sites we saw and the things we got to experience. I'm not even Cherokee. I'm a proud Muscogee (Creek), a neighbor of the Cherokees, Choctaw and Sicangu Lakota.
But still, I found it amazing to be able to stand on the Kituwah Mound, considered to be the site of the "mother town" of all Cherokees, in what is now Cherokee, N.C., in the Great Smoky Mountains.
It was stirring to visit Ross's Landing in Chattanooga, Tenn. The Cherokee settlement became an internment camp that held thousands of Cherokees before they were forcibly marched west in the tragic eviction from their homeland known as the Trail of Tears. They crossed the Tennessee River at Chattanooga on their way to what is now Oklahoma in fall 1838.
It was also amazing to walk to the site of the original Cherokee Phoenix, first published in 1828 in New Echota. We learned how the paper was made back then. We who work at the Cherokee Phoenix are aware of its significance now. We know how many people rely on the paper for news about the tribe, especially those who live outside the Cherokee Nation and those, such as Cherokee elders, who don't have access to the Internet.
But I don't think any of us knew how important the newpaper was in 1828 and into the 1830s when Cherokee leader Elias Boudinot was its editor. Cherokee people came to rely on the paper for news that literally affected their lives: The original Cherokee Phoenix reported on events leading up to the Trail of Tears.
Then we traveled on to the town of Cherokee, in eastern North Carolina, where we visited the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' reservation and The Cherokee One Feather, the tribe's newspaper.
What struck me the most was the beauty of the area. The Great Smoky Mountains and Mingo Falls were breathtaking. I've never seen anything like them before, and I'm never going to forget it.
I took hundreds of pictures and got tons of souvenirs for my kids. But these material things aren't the most valuable things I brought home from the trip.
I brought home a sense of knowledge about a group of Indian people who were forced to leave behind possessions, their homes and even family. They were forced to walk thousands of miles to a new home that they knew nothing about. They were to leave behind their identities and sense of being, but in all the chaos and heartbreak, they started new lives and began to thrive, and they prevailed.
Now the Cherokee Nation is the second largest Indian tribe in the United States. They are prosperous and are still fighting battles.
But no matter what, the Cherokees know where they came from and won't ever forget.