It is surprising for me to realize it has been over a week since I went to library writing group and I have not yet posted what I wrote for the group on my blog. In fact, September is almost over and I have only written one blog post this month. The easiest way for me to explain my absence is to share a couple of links to some of my work that has shown up online this month. I have been very busy with a volunteer project involving researching and writing biographies about WWI nurses from the county in Indiana where I was born. I also had the good fortune for the Kansas Historical Society to use one of my articles on their site. So the following three links explain what I have been up to.
What follows is my paper for library writing group last week. I will add the pictures that I shared with them at the end.
Library Writing Group
September 2017
Topic: Vacations - one you took or one you would
like to take.
The Oregon Trail
When I was in the fourth
grade I was always in trouble. I seemed
to be grounded more often than not.
Grounding had levels. Stay in the
yard was level one. Stay in the house
was level two. And stay in your room was
level three. With level three the
offender still joined the family for meals and attended school. During that fourth grade year I was at level
three many times. During the times I was
at level three my teacher felt sorry for me and sent me home with arm loads of
books to read. This was the year I
became an avid reader and learned the life lesson that a good book can get you
through a lot. My favorite stories were
of the pioneers in their wagon trains traveling across the country.
At age 20, I graduated from LPN school. Upon graduating I assumed I would go on for my
RN. I even started a few times to go
back to school but life seemed to always get in the way. Soon I was three months away from being 50
and I realized that I either must get my RN or quit talking about it. A colleague and friend suggested I set a goal
of a vacation as a reward for when I obtained my RN to encourage me to continue
my studies when it became difficult to continue. I knew right away that I wanted to travel
the Oregon Trail as my goal for the end of RN school.
Working full-time it took me
seven years till I finally sat for and passed my boards and became an RN in May
of 2015. The end of June my
daughter, my son-in-law and myself set
out to drive the path the pioneers traveled to Oregon in the mid 1800s. We drove as close as we could to where they
would have traveled. Our first stop was
Independence Missouri and the place where they got off the steam boat and
walked into Independence to obtain their wagons and supplies. All along the trail there are interpretive
centers, museums and forts to
visit. We made many stops at these
sites. In Casper Wyoming we went on a
ride on a reproduction of a wagon of the type that was used by the pioneers. The ride was extremely bumpy and we spent
that night camping out. The rest of the
nights were spent in motels. My daughter
and I prefer Hampton Inn. When we
reached Independence Rock, which was the half way point for the pioneers, we had only just traversed the plains, while
the mountains and the deserts lie ahead.
It took us about ten days to get to Oregon since we stopped at so many
sites along the way. The mountains were
large and the desert was hot. But
finally we arrived at the “End of the Trail Interpretive Center” in Oregon City on the outskirts of
Portland. We drove home in four days.
I cherish the memories of
this trip. I have many digital photos
and videos from the time we were traveling.
The understanding I now have of what the pioneers accomplished is much
clearer than I ever could have obtained from a book or a movie. The sheer distance covered is amazing. I
learned that they put their supplies in the wagons and walked along side it the
entire way! Not at all like Hollywood
portrays the people smiling while sitting on the front seat of a covered
wagon. We stopped at one park and saw
wagon ruts. I expected to see ruts that
were a couple inches fossilized into the ground. I stood in the ruts. They were cut into solid stone and came up to
my waist.
Another
place that my daughter and I have always wanted to go is the Grand Canyon. Since they were running a special we just
purchased our tickets for a rail vacation via Amtrak to take the spring of
2018. Next year I will have another special vacation story to share.
