Journals--Day 7 Boys

Tuesday, June 27--On the Road Trip Day 7

Last night, Jon, Richie, and I moved from our room to the coldest room in the cottage because we thought this room is perfect for us and our old room is very sizzling when we go to sleep! Afterwards, we moved all of our things into that room!

We were very lucky to sleep more than the previous mornings and we were very thrilled that we did sleep very well because of a short drive to the Oregon Trail! I didn’t sleep that good because it was so freezing in our room. But my feet were frozen because I left them out of the blankets! Later, I was very cold when I got up!

It was very cool in the morning! We have to depart to the Oregon Trail at 10:30am because there would be a lot of time for us to walk around and see the visualizations about the history of the Oregon Trail! We were very thrilled to learn more about the Oregon Trail! I have an old computer game, the Oregon Trail edition five which it taught me how to keep pioneers surviving and about their experiences in the terrible journey to Oregon.

After, we got off and we started feeling like there will be a very hot afternoon! Anyways, we went to the Visitor’s center to get the tickets and the tickets seem very thin and large! I was puzzled about this but it was not really a big deal to me! Later on, we were looking around inside the building and we saw some cool things such as an old game from the past, and some diaries that pioneers wrote on what they did while on their journey to the Oregon Trail! But we will see the exhibits later because we want to see a woman who will present about the Donner family and their experiences. I learned something new. There was about 8 months and 4 days of journey to Oregon City from Illinois. The first family that landed in Oregon City was the Whitman family in 1836 then they moved to Barlow in 1846. People in the Midwest heard that California is more richer because of everything was there. Lansford W. Hastings wrote the book which it can convince people to come to the West but he never traveled this trail but he heard the stories about this. People in Midwest were brainwashed because Hastings told them that life in California is better than the Midwest and they believed him! I was really stunned that they believed him although he never experienced the journey to California! Then people were leaving their homes to go to the West and they struggled to travel over the huge mountains! Also, they believed the signs that they should cross the desert for two days and two nights but it took them 8 days to cross the desert! They struggled with the snow season which many people died in this season! They stopped their travel to Oregon because of 20 feet of snow and they stayed near the lake to continue their lives there!

After that, we went to the building full of supplies that were involved with the journey to the Oregon Trail. We met a man who presented to us about the Oregon Trail. It was interesting to learn that many men took advantage of young girls to marry them so they get more acres of land! He presented to us about more details about the Oregon Trail. Also, there were many interesting things that they used in the past such as cooking pots and old/lightweight rifles which they made me to have more imagination! Later, we took pictures of us for the Day 7 picture near of the wagon and we can’t imagine that people suffered a lot by riding that wagon and sleeping on it! It is very uncomfortable because they slept on the hard wood which I hate to sleep on!

Soon after lunch, we went to the building to continue to look around. We took some pictures of us sitting on the old tub and hard bed in the jail room! We really had a great time and we walked around to see and read their diaries on the wall. Their diaries were very interesting to me because of their terrible experiences! Soon after, we went to another room and it was about children’s life as school children and their toys. I did read the old school rules from a teacher in the past which I can’t believe because it was stricter than I thought! Soon, I did play some of the old children’s toys and they were more challenging. But today’s games are more like a cheap challenge because they copy each other as a little same rules but different names.

Then, we went to ride the trolley which it was weird to ride that bus. I did see the man who seems very terrified! We rode and stop at McDonald’s which we were puzzled on why we stopped at McDonald’s. But I thought that the trolley just stop to get more people in the trolley. Then we stopped at the pub and we got more mystified because we were still wondering on why we stopped at the pub. We thought the driver was supposed to explain each place that we stopped! Finally, a man talked to us about the old house and he was a first timer to drive the trolley and he has a little hard time to memorize thing about the old house! Then, we went back to this place where we were just waiting for a little time.

We went back to WSD in only 20 minutes and when we got there and we did type our journals. That’s it for the day! Enjoy reading our journals of Day 7!

Tuesday June 27, 2006-- On the Road Trip

Dang, our vacation is almost ended! We feel like want to stay longer but we can’t. Today was a short day, but we still had an adventure of going to Oregon City to see the end of the Oregon Trail - and taking bad advice to ride the trolley tour, which as not really enjoyable. Also today was very dry and scorching, just like yesterday!

Last night, Richie, Mike, and I discussed and decided to move other bedroom because of our old room was very boiling and we couldn’t sleep. The other bedroom was so prefect for us to sleep because it was so chilly! We knew we will sleep swiftly which is beneficial. So we shift all our things to the other room. It was so tiresome and wished the robot would help us. Soon, when we got in the bed, we fainted asleep like knock out.

Yeah! We got our energy back because we got up late in the morning. Once I came out of my bedroom and saw Mrs. Nutt still in her pajamas while she worked on the computer for the pictures, and journals in the website of On the Road.

We left to visit the exhilarating Oregon Trail. I had read the articles in there and I learned how the people suffered miserably on their way through the Oregon Trail. The settlers and pioneers had tons of dreadful experiences during they voyage to get more land (acres). Oregon Trail City was so incredible.

Wow, I can’t even visualize about their motivations through the harsh journey. I had learned that the emigrants should not consider the selfish man, Mr. Hastings who wanted to make more money and tell everyone that there was the shortcut that you could cut the 400 miles off at their journey. That message was come from the female presenter who explained the brilliant story about the travelers. She was dressed in the pioneer clothes approximately in 1850 to show everyone what the style was. She told us the interesting story about the emigrants traveling and living in the Oregon City. We did take some the fine pictures of us for the “DAY SEVEN” by the wagon. That’s Mrs. Nutt’s an idea and we liked her idea.

I had asked the male presenter some questions, for example: how many miles did the emigrants traveled from the beginning to end of the Oregon Trail. The answer was about 2,500 miles! I was surprised that emigrants could travel like that! I would have been a wimp if I had to travel that amount! Also, the young girls sometimes would marry to older man so he can double the numbers of acres from 320 for a single man to 640 for a married man. Most extreme story that I heard was about the man who married 4 years old girl to get his hands on 640 acres of land. I am so fortunate to be born today because our way of life is much different than it was in the past. Young boys at approximately 10 years of age or up could use the gun to protect his family and himself, to avoid from the Indians from attacking them.

I realized that the Indians were clever than emigrants because the Indians use the entire dead animal’s body for their living purposes and did not waste anything. Emigrants don’t do that because they just wanted to make themselves to comfortable. Because other river pass was so expensive, emigrants preferred to cross using the South Pass. The Indians there knew how to “ride” the rapids, so they permitted the emigrants to be transported across the river by using the South Pass.

As soon as we were done with learning at the displays, we got on the trolley and we rode it around town. We thought the driver would tell us about the sites of Oregon City. On the other hand, the driver said not anything about the events out there. We were puzzled and laughed so hard, because we made a mistake and did not expect that there would be no action at all on the tour!

I have compared the past to present and see there are large differences!! Today we drive in the vehicles and don’t ride on the cargo wagons anymore. Many of us prefer to wait until we get older and marry, compared to those children who wanted to marry when they were young while in the 19th century. We have plenty of things to use, drive, eat, dress, and drink than in the past. I feel bad for these emigrants who went through so much suffering on these nasty journeys in the western United States of America.
We went back to WSD and settled down around our cottage. Nancy recommended us to hurry and eat dinner so we can type the journals, because there will be mouth-watering ice cream for us to have tonight! I am thrilled that there will be ice cream since I love it for my desert time! Ahh.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006: Day 7

Most of us all had a good eight or nine hours of sleep because we didn’t have any long trip planned for today since that we were going to Oregon City, about twenty or thirty minutes away from WSD. I got up around nine, started to pack for the day, and got some dry shirts out of the dryer. Some kids ate cereal for breakfast but I cooked bacon and scrambled eggs for myself and some of the teachers. I guess I did a pretty good job on cooking the eggs because one of the teachers complimented my cooking. It wasn’t until around eleven that we all left the WSD campus to start off our day by driving to Oregon City.

As we arrived at Oregon City, it wasn’t what I expected because it just looked like a regular city. I assumed that Oregon City would look a little like small city with old fashioned things because it is one of the earlier settlements in the West. That city is famous because it is the end of the Oregon Trail where in the 1840’s, people started to move west from the Midwest/East in search for better life and prosperity. We arrived at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.

We went into the Visitors’ Center to buy the admission tickets and looked around the gift shop. After getting our tickets, we got into a building full of displays of many different things of sort such as history on the trail, people’s stories, and some exhibits of old things like stereotype pictures. We only looked around for short time because we all had to go outside and hear a presentation. This presentation was given out by a woman who was dressed like she was in the 1840’s.

Most of this presentation was all about the Donner Family, a family who took part of the Oregon Trail. It was really interesting to hear that story about that family. They became victims of a man named Lansford W. Hastings. Hastings wrote a book called Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon/California. This book was full of lies and the routes to Oregon/California were never tried or tested by Hastings. The Donner family went through many hardships to travel in miserable conditions. They succeeded this move but lost many family members. The Breen and Reed families who also traveled along with the Donners didn’t lose anyone.

After the presentation, we all went to other building to see a show. We all sat in a room where everything from the 1840’s was present such as muskets, barrels, sacks of flour/rice, etc. It was really fascinating to hear the man telling all about the Oregon Trail. He described and explained how the move from Midwest to the West started and how people had to face some difficulties. A lot of people died from mistakes not by diseases. People wanted to bring everything to the west but they couldn’t because their wagons could not withstand more than one ton of supplies. Some of them arrived at the West either starving or well supplied. It was really shocking to hear that about two-thirds of the women that went on the trail were pregnant. We also saw a sideshow of where most of the emigrants started out their journey to the west. Most of them started out at Council Bluffs or Independence, Missouri. After the show ended, we all went to ask the presenter some questions about marriages, supplies, and land properties.

It was around lunchtime so we all went to eat our lunch in a nearby picnic area. We all ate well and went to a small shack nearby where there was an old man making something out of cedar. This man made many different things with cedar such as doll houses, some kind of tool used to cook fish, and ropes. He also made two large shed to store all of the cedar wood inside. He described to us about his hobby and how he started working with wood when he was a scout. We all asked him various questions. He said that cedar was much better to work with because it mostly kept insects out because of the strong cedar smell. He also showed us some tools that he used to make things. It was very similar to what those emigrants used in the past.

Afterwards, we all went on the trolley to go on a trip to look around the city. The woman at the desk back at the visitor’s center said we all should take the trolley ride. The ride actually turned out bad because all the trolley did was stop and move on to other place and stop then drove right back to the center. We expected to look at different places around the city and we didn’t. So we all went back to WSD. We continued to work on our journals and investigations. Afterwards, we all went out for ice cream. I better say good night to y’all because I got a big day ahead of me tomorrow as we’re leaving for Seattle. What a fun and huge day tomorrow. Ciao and take care, y’all.