I think I’ve mentioned in previous posts that 10-15 years ago I got interested in American History in a big way.
That led to putting an item on my bucket list to read a biography of every president in order. I am not so much interested in the individual presidents as people as I am in the mood of the country and the citizenry that led to each of their elections. I am also a student of how the country reacted to the politics of the time, and how it affected history to bring us to the place we find ourselves in 2023. A few months ago I finished (and wrote about here) the 19th President, Rutherford B. Hayes and how there were similarities between his election and the 2020 election.
As is often the case, while reading a presidential biography, I get sidetracked by something that happened during his term, and go off on a tangent, reading about and researching the event that captured my attention. Such was the case when, in 1869, President Ulysses S Grant sent a letter to Congress calling for the construction of a canal in Central America to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans without having to go completely around South America and through the treacherous waters between Cape Horn and Antarctica. Several exploratory expeditions had been undertaken by several countries, including the United States, since 1850. By the end of his presidency (1877), Grant had concluded that a canal was not feasible.
In 1880, Grant was approached by an agent of the French Panama Canal Company and invited to become a part of the French effort to build the canal. He declined. The French decided to go ahead with the canal project after their successful completion of the Suez Canal in 1869. The Panama Canal project was headed by the same man who was in charge of the construction of the Suez Canal.
The Suez was essentially a ditch dug through a flat sandy desert. The Panama Canal was completely different and posed engineering challenges not fully anticipated. The French abandoned the project in 1889 after 8 years of construction. The project suffered from cost overruns due to the severe underestimation of the difficulties in excavating the rugged terrain, heavy personnel losses to tropical diseases, and political corruption in France surrounding the financing of the massive project. The canal was only partly completed.
The Panama Canal project was taken over by the United States in 1903 under the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. The canal opened to transoceanic travel in August 1914. The full history of the Panama Canal completely captivated me after reading a book called The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough. When I finished reading about this magnificent engineering marvel that became #1 on the list of 7 Wonders of the Modern World, I put visiting the Panama Canal on my bucket list.
I am happy to report today that I’ve made reservations to check off the Panama Canal on my bucket list.
When we took our first cruise in January, we didn’t really enjoy it all that much. I wrote about it here. I said then that the only way we’d consider another cruise was to the Panama Canal and Alaska, if that’s the best way to see those places. It seems that a cruise IS the best way for the Panama Canal. One day a few weeks ago I got an e-mail touting some prices that seemed very reasonable. Sure enough, they were, at least in my opinion. Randy and I discussed it and decided to just go for it. We booked a balcony cabin on an 11-day cruise that does a full canal crossing. We’re going in late November and early December, which just happens to fall very close to our wedding anniversary (December 12). I am not going to lie when I tell you that I am pretty dang excited about this upcoming adventure.
We’re smarter now about cruising, we have friends who have been on Panama Canal cruises and have given us a lot of good tips and advice. The ports on the cruise include the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Aruba, Curacao, and Panama City, Panama. The cruise ends there, and we fly back to Miami.
When I was a child growing up in Wisconsin, I never dreamed of traveling and seeing the world. Then I married another Wisconsinite who happened to make a career out of the Air Force. Travel has never been a goal or desire of ours, yet we’ve been privileged to have lived and visited places I never even knew existed outside the Midwest. This upcoming cruise adds a whole new area of the world to our portfolio of travel experiences.
What a tremendous blessing! It’ll be a while, but I’ll be sure to let you know if the Panama Canal lives up to the hype in my mind.
P.S. Complications of the surgery are finally starting to clear up. No word yet on when the second surgery will be scheduled. I feel the perfect peace offered by all your prayers and good wishes. Thank you!
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