Modern Day Oregon Trail
March 10th, 2025
Watching on the passenger side for Michael’s return, I felt our vehicle rock gently back and forth. Cars drove by in a steady stream behind me, looking for an alternative route from I-40, which was blocked off by a police car. We had tried the same thing, only to be stopped by another officer further down the road.
Earlier in the day, I’d felt the wind pull at my clothes as I entered a Love’s Travel Stop for our routine gas and bathroom break. I didn’t think much of it, except that the breeze was unusually strong. We’d even cancelled our hotel in Hays, with only a 10% refund (ouch), since we were making excellent progress.
“Reminds me of The Wizard of Oz,” I say nonchalantly, a brown haze building on our right.
“Grace, don’t you remember how that movie begins?” Michael answered in a shocked tone, referring to the tornado scene.
Michael climbed back into the Acura with the news; no vacancy here either. Everyone had hunkered down to wait out what was quickly becoming a full on dust storm. We had tried two hotels and finally a motel, all of them full. It was time to lament our Hays’ cancellation, and search for another place of rest.
The motel worker had given directions to a backroad we could take to Scott City, where a hotel would hopefully be vacant. It took us further off route, but we were desperate for a room to sleep in and shelter from the storm. Scott City offered both of those to our family, and a continental breakfast.
I reminisced of another couple struggling with a place to stay from the Bible, Joseph and Mary. At least I was not pregnant and ready to pop at any moment. How terrifying that must have been, not knowing where they would have baby Jesus!
So many of our experiences made me stop and consider the struggles of the past. The families who weathered the Dust Bowl crossed my mind as we raced away from the billowing dust storm. While descending Colorado’s Bald Mountain with Mabel in my arms, bundled up against the chill wind, I thought of the Cherokee mother, sheltering her starving baby from the cold. How did the plains look as thousands of cattle were being herded across? How could the pioneers make it to Oregon in wooden wagons?
Unlike families who’d traveled the same route a century ago, we blazed along at seventy five miles per hour on a paved road in an air conditioned Acura, not even having to walk a mile on foot. I enjoyed it. No dysentery. No measles. No jolting wagon. Still, with all our advanced technology we can have a false sense of security. God protected us from a seventy car pile up in Kansas due to low visibility. He kept Michael alert during the daily driving grind, and gave us safe hotels to sleep in.
We stopped at the National Oregon Trail Interpretive Center and perched ourselves on a display wagon, a symbolic end of our own Modern Day Oregon Trail. Still on our way to Washington, it was nice reflecting on the aspirations of the ones who’d travelled before us, the tenacity and courage of the human soul, and our own journey yet to be completed.
