The adventures of T.pain Johnson
By: Ryan Merrell
Day #1
Today April 25, 1854 we departed on our trip to the West coast. We left with our covered wagon on the Oregon Trail. We encountered the Missouri River three long days later luckily there was a Native American who was running a ferry to help travelers cross the river safely although I didn't notice anyone who didn't cross safely, we only paid a small $25 fee. We decided to hunt for some fresh meat although we didn't have any luck and didn't hit a shot on any animals. I haven't mentioned that with me on my adventure to the west coast is my brother, his wife, and their two month old baby, my wife and my daughter. Along with my family we have our wagon train with a few other families. We were encountered by an Indian who offered a gamble with us but we declined his offer. We continued on with only one issue that didn't affect anyone in our train which involved the amount of water each person carried along in their wagon. We had to drop some un-needed weight from our wagon.
Day #2
It has been a long and stressful day. The long journey has started to take a turn on the attitudes of the families in the train. We crossed a river today. I decided to be safe and pay the friendly gentlemen running the ferry that crossed the river 45 dollars. I also tried my luck hunting once again. I was lucky enough to get the catch of the day and got 30lbs. of fresh meat. We encountered a snake which spooked one of our horses. The horse caused on of the wagons to tip over which caused my son's leg to be broken by the wagon. We had to set his bone in place and position it so it couldn't be moved which could move the bone out of place. Luckily he wasn't infected and did not die. We have met our first fork in the trail. We decided to take the long and generally safer route and so far we haven't encountered anything that truly puts our train in danger. This is the end of my log for the day, we have a long time left walking on this trail so i better get back to walking.
Day #3
We have been on the trail for a long time now. Times are starting to get hard and time isn't passing any faster than I wish it would be. Our train has seen better days than the ones we are seeing now. We encountered a tribe and he asked our wagon leader if we had open hearts. We answered what we felt was right and it resulted in all of our members receiving an orphan child from the tribe. I once again took my chances hunted and I once again got the shot of the day. We needed to cross yet another river and being the person I am i didn't take my chances forging the river and i payed the pricey fee to cross the river on a ferry. We met a fork in the trail and decided to take a trail by the name of massacre canyon. At first I was rather skeptical about the name and the stories I had heard about the trial but the rest of my wagon train seemed perfectly fine with it so i had faith in them. We didn't have enough water so we needed to filter some to drink. We decided to filter it and boil it and it met my standards. I have high hopes of the land of the west and I think we are going to make it their without a casualty.
Day #4
Word has spread of a disease on the trail called Cholera. It is supposed to be contracted by water that has fecal waste in it. Luckily no one in our train has been infected by it and no one has been poisoned by it. We ran into a landslide on the trail. We were able to clear the trail without any huge delays on us reaching our final destination. Tensions are starting to get high on the trail and food and water is starting to get scarce. Our animals are running out of feed and are starting to get sick and weak. We were in need of fresh food so we once again went hunting. We got the catch of the day and we were supplied with lots of fresh food with was much over due. We were fired upon by a tribe of Native Americans. We lost some bulk weight units of supplies and we were very startled by the sudden attack. We were given the option to either try to make it through the mountains before the winter storm or stay behind. All time is precious now on the trail. For now I must close off this journal and I will be back when we make it through the mountains.
Covered wagon
This is a painting of the typical covered wagon used on adventures on the Oregon trail.
Brown, Dan. Covered Wagon. Digital image. Seekingmichigan. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
Wagon train
This is a photo of a normal sized wagon train on the trail.
Wagon Train
This is a photo of several wagon trains.
Smith, Phill. Wagon Train. Digital image. Quoteimg. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.