Oregon Trail Pt.2, The Reality

In the Oregon Trail video game, the first thing you do is load your wagon. From what I recall, you need to ensure you buy plenty of essentials from the general store before embarking; things like axles, ammunition, and salted pork. You also need to buy a wagon and horses, the modern equivalent of which is renting a vehicle, which I did. But from the moment I went to pick up our car, I knew our Oregon Trip was going to be very different from the Oregon Trail.

First of all, nobody died of dysentery (I credit our trusty first aid kit for this one. Not that I had to use it, mind you. The simple fact a first-aid kit is near is enough to keep dysentery at bay). Secondly, our car was not exactly what we reserved.

We had booked the cheapest economy on the menu. On the website it shows a little Toyota Echo, but in fine print it says "or equivalent." This gives the rental company quite a wide berth, in my opinion, for what is the equivalent of an Echo? A golf cart? I mean, think about it: the very name of the car suggests it isn't so much a vehicle as the distant reverberations of a car that was. Luckily, they didn't have the tiny economy car we booked, nor did they have an equivalent. In fact, they didn't have anything save for a 7-seater Dodge mini-van. It was a 2009 model, so the back seats folded right into the floor. No muss, no fuss.

I know some folks would have been miffed at the fact they booked a rice burner and got a guzzler instead. Not me. All I saw in that minivan was reprieve: the bigger the cargo space, the less I had to worry about packing "neatly." When I got the car home I was packed in record time, needing only to fold all the seats down, open the side door, and, in heaping armfuls, load the whole kit and caboodle.

It was actually smooth sailing from then on. We didn't have any driving problems at all. Well, except at the US/Canada border where I was harassed for having avocados in the car. "You can't smuggle food into America," the guard said sternly. He didn't seem to agree with my assertions that, since the avocados were clearly labeled 'grown in California' I was technically just returning them. Oh well. We were down two avocados; at least we got to keep the pears (I implore someone to please explain this to me).

After staying with friends in Seattle (Nick, Pete and little Harper), we were on the road to Oregon. Our plan was to take the back roads and ultimately camp on Oregon's northwestern coast. We picked a spot called Nehalem Bay, both for its proximity to the beach and its proximity to Portland. Getting to Nehalem took us out to the southwest corner or Washington state. There, we cross the world's longest truss bridge and end up in Astoria, Oregon.

But it was in Astoria that things got weird.