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- [Narrator] On the 
afternoon of May 23rd,

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1903, they were ready to go.

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The two men started down San 
Francisco's Market Street

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to cross the bay on 
the Oakland Ferry

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for their long journey east.

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It was the beginning of 
America's first road trip.

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A trip that would collect 
a thousand impressions

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of a country and a people

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on the cusp of 
extraordinary change.

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- [Dr. Horatio Nelson 
Jackson] My darling Swipes,

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the hardest work I ever did 
was to say goodbye to you.

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I came pretty nearly 
having cold feet.

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There isn't one woman in 
a thousand that would let

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a fellow do what I have done

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and I can tell you old 
girl, I appreciate it.

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Please give my best 
love to your mother

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and tell my father and mother

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that I love them 
as much as ever.

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I shall write you when I can

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and shall depend on you 
to keep them posted.

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Yours til New York, Nelson.

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P.S., take good care of 
yourself and don't worry.

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- There is no thing 
that we can do that is

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more American than 
getting in a car

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and striking out across country.

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I think as a nation we 
can think of few things

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that draw us more strongly than

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a piece of roadway heading 
to we know not where.

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This is the way that we grow up.

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This is the way that 
we enter our history.

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Get in a car and 
find the country.