Oregon Trail Diary

Day 8
Distance: 287 miles
Pace: Strenuous
Health: Good
Weather: Hot
Meals: Filling

After a few miles of Montana, today was consumed by the bone-dry expanses of Idaho. Shortly after leaving West Yellowstone, we picked up a branch of the Oregon Trail called Goodale's Cutoff, which was named for an Illinois mountain man named Tim Goodale. In 1862, fearful of recent Indian hostilities along the trail through present-day Idaho, a group of pioneers hired Goodale to come up with an alternate route. ("Mountain man" is one of those careers that isn't as employable as it used to be, but in those days, it was a hot industry.) Goodale came up with a route that arcs through central Idaho, across what is now the Craters of the Moon National Monument:

Craters of the Moon is an area with a handful of small, active volcanoes that erupt every so often (in geological terms), leaving the whole area covered in black lava. In the years since the last major eruption, some shrubs have made a comeback. The trees are not quite thriving, though:

All things considered, not an easy place to drag your wagons through, and not a place that inspires optimism about the road ahead. But if you have invested in a mountain man, you're kind of stuck with him, even when he takes you into a lava field. What do you do when you're a thousand miles from home and you suspect your mountain man is crazy? In this case, you stick with the plan; they rejoined the original trail (as we did) near Fort Boise, and made it to Oregon without any more than the usual amount of dysentery and cholera.

Of course, the game clearly states that you are leaving Independence in 1848, not 1862, so Goodale's Cutoff shouldn't be available to us, as we are attempting to re-enact the game as farmers from Illinois. We are cheating for practicality's sake, because we're coming from Yellowstone, which is north of the original trail. In 1848, no cutoff was necessary; everything was fine along the original trail, because the Indians weren't yet pissed off about you hunting every couple of days and only hauling 200 pounds back to your wagon. They thought it was a phase you were going through, that you would eventually start using every part of the buffalo like they did. (Or more parts of the bear.) But you never did, did you? Look around. How many parts of the buffalo are you currently using?

With regard to that 1848 date, though, a couple of things can be inferred. The migration on the Oregon Trail began in earnest in 1843, so in the game, your party of pioneers were setting out fairly early in the scheme of things, which means:

1. The reason you lose the route sometimes in the game is because the trail wasn't as worn and clearly defined as it would become in the 1850s. Also, your guidebook was probably still full of bullshit.
2. Settlers were being given 320 acres of land in Oregon for free. Since you arrived in 1848, you were probably able to grab a pretty choice parcel, once the dysentery cleared your system. (In later years, settlers had to travel further afield to find something good.) In other words, you, KURT RULES, melissa, Hulk Hogan, and RYAN IS GAY from the third grade expedition probably prospered in Oregon, if you all made it. So that's nice.

We made camp for the night on the outskirts of Boise. The lava field had been hot, but not compared to the stretch of interstate between Mountain Home and Boise. The temperature gauge of the Volks Wagon said 102. As I waited in the car, K. proved her mettle by making fresh baked cookies a deal-breaker in her negotiations with the desk clerk at the Hampton Inn; we had an excellent night.

What a fantastic headline: "Illinois Mountain Man Detours to Moon". For the first time in countless news/lunar cycles, I feel hope for our heartland.

Keep telling us cool things, and make sure to bring your party safely back.

Could you bring a few of those 320 acres too?

Posted by: Kurt | August 28, 2008 10:33 PM