Thursday April 24

Drove to Baker City, OR to the Oregon Trail
Interpretive Center. It sits on a hill top
overlooking miles of the old trail. You can walk
along it and in places the ruts made by the thousands
of ox-drawn wagons are still visible. When things
went well, the trip took 150 days from St. Louis to
Oregon. With poor weather, dead livestock, pissed-off
Indians it could take 200 days. These were tough
people. Most were middle class, many, farmers who had
sold their homesteads to get enough money to make the
trip. It was an expensive undertaking. Over 100,000
people went to Oregon by wagon between 1830 and 1850
(when the train made it unnecessary). I wonder about
the change in human character since that time. Is the
striving towards new frontier good for the human soul?
Or did it just give men more opportunities to build
phalluses (I'm talking symbolically here). There was
a bit on male/female relationships on the trail. The
heading was something like, "Men worked hard and had
fun and women did what men let them." There were very
few incidents of Indian aggression in the first few
years of emigration. The native tribes were actually
very helpful and were eager for trading opportunities.
At some point, however, the numbers of white people
got to the point where the local folk started to see a
decrease in property values: spoiled water sources,
decreased buffalo populations, annoying missionaries,
and they started to fight back. Buy the book and find
out who won.

Discovered that Farewell Bend, where I camped
yesterday got its name as the place where Oregon
Trailers, who floated down the Snake River to cut off
a few miles, got out to avoid the rapids further down,
and continued on by land.

Drove up and over the Blue Mountains, pretty much the
same route as the Oregon Trail, imagining what it must
have been like. Got into La Grande, OR and, for some
reason, noticed how white the population was. At the
same moment, I saw I drive-thru Greek take-out place
with a young black guy with serious dreads waiting for
an order. Of course, I went in. Yai Yai Nikki
(Grandma Nikki) was the proprietor, an old lady with a
Greek accent, and her American husband. The gyro was
better than anything I've had in NYC. I'm came
dangerously close to telling my blood sugar to fuck
off and suck down a piece of baklava.

Continued on into Washington, through Walla Walla.
Having also been to Okeefenokee, I only have Kalamazoo
still on the list of weird, trite, named places to
visit. This area is good sized hills totally plowed
and planted with wheat, a deep bright green with the
early plant shoots. Miles and miles of softly rounded
mounds lacking only pigmentation and nipples to be a
male adolescent's delight.

Tonight in Lewis and Clark State Park. They came
through here on their way back east. The park is in
pretty bad shape. No one else here. Not even a camp
host. Lots of wind damage. No hot water. I think L
& C used the bathrooms. I hope this isn't
representative of Washington State Parks.

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