Couple to Retrace Lewis and Clark Route to Promote Fitness

Nancy Caruso, 39, said she and her husband "decided that we were going to do this trip to change our lives and maybe inspire others to do the same." She said the inspiration for the trip came from her grandfather, William S. Deely, who lived in Pittsburgh and made the same voyage to the West Coast in a 16-foot boat in 1973. "My grandfather lived to be 96 years old, and I never remember him being sick," she said. "The one thing he was always doing was moving -- walking, building tree houses, dancing, working on his house -- he never sat around." Nancy Caruso, who grew up in northern Virginia, spent many summers visiting her grandfather in Pittsburgh. They often roamed the three rivers on his boat, she said. "He loved his boat and had a let's-do-it attitude," she said. "He was a great inspiration to me, so we're hoping people will be inspired by what we are doing." The Carusos' planned three-month excursion will begin at the Ohio River, go down the Mississippi River and then up the Missouri River where, like Lewis and Clark, they will be forced to travel over the Rocky Mountains by land. They will get back on the water at the Snake River, which will take them to the Columbia River and eventually the Pacific Ocean. Their final destination is Astoria, Ore.