Saturday, July 09, 2005

Eastward Ho! - Part I

Day 1: May 31, 2005 - Portland

Dawn has broken. I am all packed, except for one skirt that was still too wet when I went to bed last night. Leaving my packing until the last minute generally makes me nervous. While I like for the travel itself to be flexible and carefree, I still like to be organized with the packing before I leave. Nonetheless, the skirt isn't stressing me out too much. I have plenty of time to pack it before we hit the road.

Soon we head for the Oregon Trail. Hopefully the journey will go better than all those times when PCJ, MQ and I used to play the Oregon Trail Game on my first computer. Our westward journey always broke down just outside of Independence, because we liked to fill the wagon with a fully equipped cast iron stove, candy, whiskey, laudanum, and a rocking chair and banjo for entertainment. Apparently weighing down a Conestoga wagon with candy and pulling it with one spindly horse is not a recipe for success. In retrospect I realize that we should have opted for a prairie schooner instead. They are smaller, which has the drawback of less laudanum room, but are arguably more manageable for a single, spindly horse.

Ah, if I’d only known then what I know now. Despite past cyber failures, I have high hopes that the journey will go better this time, for in real life we also travel with diet coke and sweet, hot kippered beef. Besides, we are going East, not West. That probably makes all the difference.

2 comments:

Jen said...

How could you forget our cast-iron stove??? That was one of our must-have practical items! For what reason I don't know. Unless someone was cooking up the rock candy in order to inject it ....looks suspiciously at Monquee

Martina said...

Cast iron stove has been duly noted and added. I can't believe I forgot that! I can't believe I had us heading out onto the trail without proper cookware. How would we bake cookies without it?