Good Trip, Bad trip

There's a great song called "the Way" which is based on a true story about an elderly couple with beginnings of dementia who get in the car and get lost.  Their bodies are eventually found.  

Fastball,  The Way on Yontube. You'll like it.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b0wfu3tOrtQ&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Db0wfu3tOrtQ

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/fastball/the+way_20053166.html

I went on a long road trip across most of the United States.  It was a great time.  There were two groups of early American travelers whose presence was strongly felt because of signs posted and because I was on the same path that they took.  

The first traveling group was the Donner Party, not a successful trip.  This was a group of 81 pioneers who decided to move out to the west coast in 1846-47.  36 people in this party died after the group hit the Sierra while trying a new trail.

The second group was a great success.  It was the Lewis & Clark expedition which was set out from Illinois to trail blaze for the U.S. government to the Pacific Ocean.  They were looking for more territory.

I figure comparing these two charts would show astrological qualities of a good trip versus a bad trip.  Just reading the basic stories, of course, shows that one trip will succeed over the other.  The Lewis a Clark expedition was requested by the President and it's members trained for months beforehand.  The two leaders were high ranking military and so knew how to read a map.  Both Lewis and Clark were Leo Suns.  So, big haired, heroic, trail blazer sorts.

The Donner Party was composed of families who wanted a better life.  George Donner was declared the leader halfway through the expedition. He was 62.  His 3d wife tamsen was 44.  We don't know what signs they were.  I read somewhere that George was a Scorpio and tamsen was another water sign.  They had a step family full of children which creates lots of tension as it is.  Water signs are meant to wander around and to read vague innuendos into the compass in a psychi sort of way.  Don't ever let them say they can lead you across a straight line.

The Donner party left North Carolina on April 14, 1846.  Mercury was retrograde at 2 Taurus.  Mercury retrograde is not considered a positive thing for starting any kind of mercurial type of event.  Trekking across the country in covered wagons would be in this category.  Either way, it's interesting to notice that mercury would have backtracked into aries for the first 3 or 4 weeks of the trip.  Maybe there was confusion over who was actually leading the group right from the start.  Either way, we can see impulse control issues.

I don't have a time so can't pull up the whole chart for theDonner Party. Sun in Aries and moon in Scorpio or Sagittarius could be a pretty positive start to the trip.  What looks negative are 2 big conjunctions.  Saturn and Neptune were conjunct within a degree of each other at 28-29 Aquarius.  This can bring on some confusion concerning plans, maybe a little martyrdom.  Maybe its best not to look for cooperation in big step family groups.  This conjunction sextiles the other big conjunction of sun-Pluto at 26 Aries.  That's a powerful aspect that might bring on some overpowering tragedy of some sort.

The Lewis and Clark expedition was created for a completely different purpose.  It's members were well trained.  Only one member died.  They set off at 4:00 pm on May 14, 1804 from camp Dubois, wood river, Illinois. This gives 16 libra ascendant with lucky free range Jupiter in the first house. Sun 24 Taurus (h8) with moon in Leo so lots of fixed Boy Scout energy.  The chart features a mystic rectangle between sun, Saturn, Neptune and Ceres so a balance of sextiles, trines and oppositions.  Lots of talent for meeting with the enemy?  Moon was in conjunction with the north node which is great for scanning the territory and expanding the homeland and possibly not running out of food.  Mercury is very strong in Gemini which is its own sign in the 9th house of long distance travel and mars is also in its own sign of adventurous Aries.

There's a lot more to the story of course.  There always is but I'll stop here.