Journals--Day 7 Girls

Day 7: Tuesday, June27, 2006

At first I woke up and saw that no one else was awake. I wondered what time it was. So I went into the bathroom and looked at the clock, saw that it was only 7 oC, and went back to bed. Then I heard Lymarie’s SK alarm go off so that is when I woke up. When I was ready, I saw that all the other girls were already out of the room, so I rushed so that I wouldn’t make everyone else late.

Today I knew that we were going to Oregon City, Oregon to see where the Oregon Trail ended. At first I thought it was so boring, but then when we went to see a presentation of the Donner Trip. That is where it got interesting, and I was fascinated by the facts that I heard. The woman’s name presenting was Ginny.

The reason why they got stuck in the mountains by a blizzard is, because the man leading the “wagon train” said to take a shortcut that has never been tried before. He wanted to take the shortcut, because one man wrote a guide book to the west and said that it would take off 400 miles of the regular trail. Even though many of the women had a feeling that it wasn’t the best choice, the men insisted, because the guide was written by an attorney so they thought that it was the best trail to take. The trail that the man wrote about in his book wasn’t even a trail! They should have let the women give their opinions, because women tend to know if something doesn’t feel right or if they should do anything.

One of the things that happened caused them to know that they made a mistake is, when they saw a note saying, “two days, two nights, drive hard across desert, see water” and they crossed the desert, but it was six days not two days. It was too late to go back; they couldn’t go back across the desert and through the canyon, so they continued the way that they were going.  I think that the men learned not to always follow something if people already told them not to; I know they had at least two people tell them not to go that way but they did anyway. Now they have to suffer, and I don’t think it is fair for the children and the women. I really don’t think it is fair for the children, I mean they are children, and they don’t need to be climbing over tough mountains and dry deserts if they don’t have to. If it was the regular trail that they should be on then they have no other choice, but for something that doesn’t even have a trail that is too much.

When Ginny was done presenting, we went to see this other presentation about what the emigrants brought with them to the west when they went. Did you know that the size of the wagon that they took was only the same size of a regular size walk in closet? It was smaller that I thought it would be considering all the stuff they had to bring. I was shocked at the size of it. The man that was talking said that they brought 150 pounds of coffee because the water that they start out with will be gone and on the plains they had what’s called “buffalo pond” and that water was filthy. So they would have coffee instead. They also had to bring 50 pounds of salt and sugar. They also brought beans, cornmeal, flour, and that kind of stuff.

When he was finished with the presentation, we had our lunches because all of us were starving!!! So we went under the picnic pavilion that they had there, and we ate. When we were finished, we went to see this man who builds things out cedar trees just like they did when they came here. He let Mike and I cut some wood, but he started it and we finished it. I was the only girl, who would do it, the other girls were too afraid! Ha!! I did it because the man wanted a girl to come up and the other girls didn’t want to. But it was fun anyway!

After we finished with that, we went to look at the history and different stories of how people came. There was this one story that really fascinated me. It was about this black woman who wanted to go with her white family that she has been with for years and years, but the man already agreed to go with this wagon train that didn’t want any black people. He agreed to take her because his daughters begged him to take Rose; I believe is the slave’s name.

So what he did was built a big box that fits in the back of his wagon and that was big enough for Rose to fit in. During the day Rose stayed in the wagon and a night the man let her get out and stretch out legs and body! I can’t imagine me ever doing that!!! I wouldn’t be able to do that, there is no way! I get uncomfortable just sitting in one position for more that one hour.

Then we went to see what kind of games they had when they were here at Oregon City. They had much different kind of games; I tried one that I knew how to do. It was two nails bent so that there is one way that you can unhook them from each other. I did it before and so I knew how to do it, but I didn’t do it in a really long time, such as two years ago. But I did get it after five minutes which surprised me because I couldn’t remember how to do it. After I got them unhooked, I couldn’t get them hooked again!! I thought, “Ohh come on!! I just hooked these nails five minutes ago and I can’t get them hooked again!!”

So, I finally gave up and went to this wood picture that allows you to put your face in the circle so it looks like you were wherever was painted on the wood. This wooden stand was painted so it looked like the people back in the days when people were still coming on the trail. I was partners with Mike for the picture. When we were finished with the picture I pushed Mike’s head through the circle, and to my surprise it fit! I was laughing so hard!

When we were finished taking pictures, we went on a bus called “Trolley”. The trolley stopped at many different places. The one place that we went to was the Paper Mill, and it reeked!!!! Before we got out of the bus to look at the mill, Richie said it was me that smelled. I was like ha-ha. I knew it wasn’t me because I saw a waterfall and I knew that the smell had to be coming from the building. And it turned out to be a paper mill and that’s what was causing the smell. Then we stopped at two History Monuments, houses. I couldn’t hear whose houses they were, but the man driving talked briefly about each house.

Then when we got back to the building that we started off from, we headed back to the cottages because all of us were so tired! When we got to the cottages I automatically started on my journal because we are planning on going out for ice cream if all of us finish early. I know we didn’t do much today but tomorrow will be the most that we will do yet! WE ARE GOING TO SEATLLE!!!!!!! And I am so excited about it! I can’t wait, but the thing is that it is three hours from here! Now that is a really long drive!! But we can handle it heeheehee. Well buh-bye for now!!

Journal Day 7: Tuesday, June27, 2006

Ahh, I felt so much better when I woke up late this morning instead of waking up too early. I was so ready and waited for the others to be ready and go to Oregon City. Well, for today we didn’t actually do very much, we needed to rest our body mostly instead of doing too much; is because we need to save our full energy for the next BIG day tomorrow to Seattle! It is about 3 hours away. Tomorrow we will be so extremely busy all day and come back to the dorm late at night. I bet tomorrow will be full of excitements for us and there will be lot things to see!   

Anyway, back to the point, when we came into the Oregon City, I saw there’s about 25 big white and thick poles that goes in a curved shape from the bottom on the ground to the another side on the bottom. It looked exactly like on the top of the old wagon style that people used a long time ago around in the 1850’s. When I got there and stood near where the white poles are at, I looked up and thought wow it is tall! To me, I think it is awesome “art work” to show what wagon looked like and it’s a very strong display because Oregon City is mostly related about the old wagons a long time ago. I decided to picture it because I think it is good idea to show this picture to you guys so that you would get the idea and understand what I meant.

We all seem so interested and couldn’t wait to come in the Visitor’s Center and see what’s there. When we came in, all of sudden, I felt so cold in there because of the air conditioner was on but only few minutes later, I felt a little better and comfortable myself too. I have looked at all the pictures and many of the cool displays of what was in the past looked like in Oregon City. I saw things such as, an old bath tub, the prison area, living room, wagons, mailbox, a small blackboard, old papers and much more!  It is big difference compared to today. It was very interesting to see of how the time had been changed since. But dang, we didn’t have enough time to look around; we stopped and met a woman who dressed up with the old fashioned dress that women wore in 1850’s. We were enjoyed and listened to the story that she had told us about the Donner Family. In this story, a young man name Hastings who wanted to be a king and rule over the California.  He was friend with Reed and told his wife to go to California. Reed had thought about it and one day his wife got a terrible headache, Hasting told Reed to come here so that she will feel much better. So Donner decided to join Reed’s group. Hasting also wrote a guide book that tells which way to get there to California. So the Donner Family joined a wagon group to the Sierra Nevada Mts. and stayed there for one night before climbing the mountains. But on that night, the snow was poured to 20 feet. This means Hasting tricked the people and the way he wrote in the guide book wasn’t true at all. This story is pretty fascinating to me and how brave they are who tried so hard to reach to California/Oregon from Illinois. They actually did it though. But sadly, they got tricked in some ways anyway

We thanked her for telling us this wonderful story and looked at some of the pictures that she had with her: the pictures of Donner Family and 2 letters that parents wrote in handwriting and a map to show where they went to California/Oregon from Illinois. I had this feeling of how could they carry everything with them in the wagon, carry the wagon across the river and suffer through during when a mother was pregnant, how impossible is that? It is painful and not an easy thing to do and for the river, it is big and very bumpy too.

There’s another person, a man, who told us the story about the list of what they need to bring with them before they leave to Oregon. And, what they have been through this uneasy travel as well. We looked at the video and saw several art pictures of the people to show us what the pioneers were doing. Also, the lists of what a pioneer needed to bring with them only inside one wagon. It was pretty a lot and a lot of money to pay to buy those things for their traveling to Oregon. Their life wasn’t easy at all but they made it! Unbelievable… For me, I liked his presentation and I have learned so many things more than the woman presenter.

Afterward, I ate my own new creative sandwich for my lunch is peanut butter with some cuts of the banana and it is definitely delicious! Actually, I took this idea from Nancy, hee hee!

There’s an old man that we met today and gosh, he built the small houses, the mini tools and few mini canoes as well; only used by the cedar, not anything else at all! He is very good and talented at it and he loves to work to build something with the cedar wood only. He showed us some pictures that the Native Americans do the same thing. They work and build everything used by the cedar wood. They usually to use the cedar wood to make and build everything of what they needed.

Yayaya! We came back into the Visitor’s Center again to take more time for us to look around inside and picture everything what we saw there. The pictures and the displays are pretty cool and I have learned something new myself too. Everything I see is completely different than today, I wished I could go into that time, to be able to see and what does it feel like in that old time. Sadly I wasn’t born at that time... but I rather to live today than before though. When we were done with that, we were waited for the Trolley bus to come and let us ride to somewhere. Honestly, I had this feeling that I was kind of excited and I thought we will ride and see many so things related to the past in the Oregon City or something but it wasn’t… it was not a fun part to me at all, it was nothing, we just saw the houses, the stores and the Willamette River for around 30 minutes or less. I mean, hello what is this??? What are we supposed to see?

Well, that’s all what we did today, but I had good time of learning about the Donner Family and I like beginning to feel that I wanted to go back to 1850’s; to see and what does it feel like in that time. It’s just an interesting part to me. So it’s time to say good-bye to you guys and I will talk to you tomorrow night! Good night!

Day 7: Tuesday, June27, 2006

Today was the seventh day and there will be only 4 more days left to go home!!  Today was okay but we didn’t do a lot. We went to Oregon City, Oregon.  We toured the Visitor’s Center.  We also explored the pioneers and their experiences on the Oregon Trail.  We also went to meet the tour guide interpreter. 

It was hot outside. We all felt better because we slept till 9am instead of waking up at 7am.  But I still am tired. We are used to sleeping at midnight and waking up at 7am.  We went to Oregon City, Oregon at around 12:00pm.  We went inside the Visitor’s Center.  It was nice and stunning inside.  We walked all around; it was all about how people are experienced to get to Oregon City from Illinois.  We also met our presentation woman. 

I learned a log of new information about what people’s experienced in a long time ago.  Let me tell you what I learned today.  The families walked to Oregon City from Illinois.  It was 2,100 miles and I didn’t even think how I will have to walking for 2,100 miles because I am often see a lot of people using the cars to drive instead of walking. WOW I can see how hard for them to walk for 2,100 miles!!  Some of them had problems to get a little water and food.  One man named Eddy had a wife and 2 very small children that they ran out of water.  He had asked other man who had plenty of water if he could have some of water for his children.  The man refused.  Eddy threatened to kill him.  He had lost his patience.  The people were scared.  My opinion was that Eddy was right and he was the father.  The other people who had plenty of water should have given some water to Eddy because his children were very desperate to get water or they will die. But I know my dad would do like that.  But the kids had to suffer and adults had to suffer too.

The pioneers walked to Oregon City, Oregon from Illinois because they think the territory Oregon (Oregon, City) was a paradise.  They walked with horses and wagons and some people with wheelbarrows to there for 8 months and 4 days!!  Can you believe it!? The two out of the three women were in a labor and birthed a baby during that time.  It was awful.  Five to seven people only can fit in the one wagon.  It was hard for them to go to up the mountains.  One day, they were allowed to rest from walking.  The next day they had to go to up the mountains again.

Hastings lived in California.  The Donner Family joined with Reed.  Reed worked as a furniture maker.  Hastings asked Reed to come to California.  Reed said sure and asked his wife to come to California.  His wife said no so he tried to persuade her.  She had bad migraines and he told her that her migraines will be better if she would come to California.  She said ok and they and the Donner family went to California.  But they were stuck in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and there had 20 feet of snow.  They stayed there till spring and half of people were dead.  Finally, the Donner family, Reed, and his wife went to Oregon then they hated Hastings so much because he lied to them about the trail and he didn’t try his trail first.  My feeling about it was, it was so awful, I don’t like Hastings either.
The other thing when the families cook for their food, they didn’t have any enough fires so the children had to look all around for buffalos’ chips that will help give fuel for fires.  It was very complicated but yes, it was gross and hideous.

They also had to go to the lake that had bugs, dirt, and other gross things.  Children had to grab the water so they can drink it.  It was so gross.  But it was better than nothing.

I asked the man who was presenting to us a question.  I asked him does a woman and a man marry for nothing or just love?  He said both; they are married because they fall in love or not. The other reason some of other people were married because when the man married one woman and she died from childbirth and so he had to marry another woman not because he loved her but to take care of his children.   One man was married to one girl and she was four years old!!!!!!!!!!!  Can you imagine if he married her today!!??

We also went to on a Trolley Bus.  We don’t have any fun because they thought we will travel anywhere that we will learn something different. But the man who drove the bus didn’t say anything because it was his first day on the job.  He was very awkward.  But he did talk to us some about it but not really tell everything. But we understood.  Because I knew how he felt on his first day for doing his job.

We went inside Visitor’s Center again and looked all around because we didn’t finish looking around.  Jon, Mike, and I were fooling around in the jail that had a fake jail to play in.  We took some of pictures of us in the jail.  It was fun.

We left the Visitor’s Center.  We went to back to WSD.  Our goals are go to out for ice cream and sleep early because we will have a LONG and BUSY day tomorrow.  I will probably tell you a very long journal about tomorrow in Seattle because I WILL SEE IT and IT WILL BE AN AWESOME DAY.  I have been waiting for to see it. All I want to see is the Space Needle!  YEAH!