Carylin' on the Oregon / California Trail - Day Six

Caryling on the Oregon Trail

DAY 6

Though we were gone many more days, this is the last day I'll be sharing here on our incredible, awesome research journey on the Oregon / California Trail. On this day we broke off from the Oregon Trail and went south on the California Trail for the rest of our trip.

Near Fort Hall was where the wagon trains had a parting of the ways, some going north if  Oregon was their destination or south for the wagons going on to California.

We woke up in Pocatello, Idaho, where the actual Fort Hall is now on the Shoshone-Bannock Indian Reservation about thirty miles away and is inaccessible general public without special permits.

But a replica was built in the city in the in 1960s. We visited the public museum there. Once we left, we got to Nevada very quickly.

I finally got to see the actual tracks of the wagons near Wells, Nevada. There'd been lots of places where you could see them before, but since we took our trip in December, our choices were more limited.

We had to drive a ways out of Wells, Nevada, but what a thrilling sight! The double tracks worn into the packed earth almost two hundred years ago by wagon trains passing through.

It looks like an old farm road you might see here in Red River County where I live in a Texas farming community---well, minus the mountains on the horizon. You can see the "California Trail" marker bottom center to verify this is the real deal.

This was one of my favorite places of all the sights we’d seen!

We followed the Snake River, just as the wagon trains did. A part of the actual trail is beneath the highway we rode on.

Soon we got to Massacre Rock, so-called because of the narrow passage between the rocks, only wide enough for one wagon at a time.

The gap was called the Devil’s Gate or Gate of Death. It’s a State Park now.

A little farther on the highway, we stopped at Register Rock.

This place was a wonderful place for the wagons to stop and spend a day or two of rest as it proved to be a prime camping area.


Sojourners carved their names and dates on rocks in this park as so many had on Independence Rock, but here you could get up close.

Though the biggest rocks are behind a chain-link fence and covered with a tabernacle type roof to preserve it, protecting it from modern-day people who would carve their names.

I wondered if those who carved their names so long ago had thought that an author doing research for a book about traveling on the Oregon / California Trail might come by one day and take a photo of their name almost two centuries after they’d done the deed.

With her phone, no less!

By now the settlers had traveled about twelve hundred miles of their two thousand mile journey and the hardest part still lay ahead of them.

I would have hated knowing I couldn’t change my mind and go back where I had come from.
The only option was to go forward.

This is where they entered the ‘Great Basin’, following the Humbolt River that eventually just disappears into the ground. Its water turned very alkaline.

Then they faced the Forty-Mile Desert. The extreme heat was tough on the people but especially on the oxen as they’ve been working hard for many months.

To avoid it, they rested during the day and only traveled at night, pushing to get across the waterless desert in as little time as possible.

To lighten the load, after carrying their possessions all that way, they started emptying the wagons, leaving furniture and precious items behind on the trail along the way.

They thought that was surely the worst of it.

But the weary travelers got through that dreadful place, the Sierra Nevada Mountains stood in front of them.

The Shoshone tribe helped the settlers find water and food once across the desert.

As we drove, I couldn’t imagine how the wagons would have climbed those mountains.

At one of the hardest, highest spots, they took the wheels off the wagons and used great logs to roll the wagons up, oxen pulling from the top, men pushing from below, until each wagon got over the steep climb.

In my Prairie Roses Collection Collection contribution titled REMI! This is the place where they celebrate, looking down over the beautiful California valley on the west side of the mountain.

My characters, Asher and Remi plan on settling in the Napa Valley. They carried grape stock to plant a vineyard there. This is a story you won’t want to miss!

And you meet Remi toward the end of my Lockets and Lace Collection (all Sweet Americana Sweetheart bloggers) title UNIQUELY COMMON.  So read UNIQUELY COMMON first, then REMI! And enjoy! 

Bio: Award-winning Author Caryl McAdoo prays her story brings God glory! And her best-selling novels are blessed with a lion’s share of 5-Star ratings! With forty-three-and-counting titles, she loves writing as well as singing the new songs the Lord gives her—listen to a few at YouTube. She and husband Ron share four children and eighteen grandsugars. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County, in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door. 

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