Back in the day, nearly everyone in my generation played The Oregon Trail. It was simple computer game designed to teach school children about the life of a 19th century pioneer by navigating your pixelated covered wagons through the virtual wilderness 🌲💾
Along the way, you crossed dangerous rivers, hunted for food, hoarded supplies, tried to keep your oxen alive, and did your best not to die. Today, the Oregon Trail has an entirely different feel - at least for me. After spending the summer in Boulder, we ditched the covered wagon for station wagon (an early-90s Acura MDX) and drove 1200 miles across Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and along the Willamette River into Oregon.
While those 19th century pioneers largely staved off hunger by shooting pixelated deer and selling their children for fresh water, we opted for In-and-Out burger and scouring the wildness for gluten free beer 🍻👀 Highlights of the journey included Arches National Park in Moab, spotting actual oxen (or in this case,bison) grazing along Utah’s Great Salt Lake, and a private tour of Idaho Falls.
Thankfully, our biggest obstacles didn’t involve broken wagon wheels or drowning oxen, but we did arrive to a modern-day-disaster of finding our AirBNB in disrepair requiring us to find a new one and relocate in the middle of the night. I guess the modern day journey through the “wilderness” has its own set of unique perils 🙃
But, like the computerized pioneers before us, the journey out west was well worth the the hassle the moment your eyes meet the beautiful rivers, lush bountiful forests, and picturesque mountain landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.
Retracing the modern day Oregon trail turned out to be the quite the adventure - and while times have certainly changed since I last time I played that retro-PC game - I’m pleased to report that no one died of dysentery 😅