The Frogs O' War Staff Travels the Oregon Trail

Full disclosure: I took this idea from Matt Brown over at Land Grant Holy Land.

THIS IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN.

Five brave Frogs O' War writers ventured out from Independence, Missouri on the way to Oregon. It did not take long for things to start going wrong.

Just 100 miles into the trip, a fire broke out in the wagon.

Someone familiar with guns will need to tell me how we can lose bullets in a fire. Anywho, on we went. A mere 15 miles later, this happened.

I wanted to tell Marshall to suck it up, but instead we chose to rest for two days. That seemed to be enough to get Marshall back in decent condition. We continued on our way, and it was relatively smooth sailing. We found an abandoned wagon wheel, I shot a few deer, things were good.

And then.

NO. WE MUST REST FOR FIVE DAYS.

Resting seemed to do the trick. We made it to Fort Laramie without any other incidents. However, we were starting to get low on food, and to this point I had been rather unsuccessful at killing anything of substance for us to eat. However, we trekked on, and were fine as we.....DAMMIT MARSHALL STOP GETTING SICK.

It's just a fever. We're not stopping.

Oh.

Well, ok then. We'll rest for a day.

While we rest, I'll check the map to see how close we are.

WE HAVEN'T EVEN MADE IT HALFWAY?! NO MORE RESTING.

I also upped the pace from "steady" to "strenuous."

We made great time for a while, and then, I had to choose. Go towards the Green River crossing, or Fort Bridger. We'll go to the crossing. The crossing at the Green River was 20 feet deep. We shouldn't play around with caulking the wagon, we'll just pay the ferry to get us across, nice and safe.

FIVE DOLLARS NO WAY. CAULK UP THE WAGON LADDIES.

WOOOOOO.

At this point, I'm feeling pretty invincible. We're definitely going to make it to Oregon.

And now, we've gone 1,190 miles, we've just arrived at Fort Hall, no one has died. We're basically TCU's offense. Unstoppable.

We don't stay long though, gotta get back on the road ya know? We cruise along for a few hundred more miles, when a fire breaks out. No real harm done though, we just lost a wagon axle. No time for resting, gotta keep moving.

And then.

Walk it off, Marshall.

WALK IT OFF, ANDREW.

Ok, so people are sick, broken, tired....and we come to a river crossing. 6.1 feet deep across. That's way more shallow than some of the previous rivers we've crossed. We'll just caulk up and float on across.

OH NO. MARSHALL. ANDREW. NO.

/loud lamenting

We must continue on, if for no other reason now than to honor the memories of Marshall and Andrew. As we cleared the river I went and shot a deer. We're desperately low on food at this point, so we really need to get to Fort Boise ASAP.

We're 5 miles from Fort Boise. We're not stopping.

Once we made it to Fort Boise we loaded up on food, ammo, and backup axles and wheels. We're getting close to Oregon City. WE CAN DO THIS. FOR MARSHALL (BACON). FOR ANDREW.

We then get to a fork in the road. One way, the Dalles, the other, Fort Walla Walla. TO WALLA WALLA WE GO.

As it turns out, if you go to Walla Walla, you still have to go through the Dalles to get to Oregon City. Waste of time.

30 miles outside of the Dalles, this happens.

Not only does this suck because oxen are expensive, but it slows us down tremendously. We now have three oxen to get us the rest of the way.

When we get to Dalles, we're provided with two ways to get to Oregon City. Float down the Columbia River, or take the toll road.

Toll roads are for Dallasites. We floated the river, thank you. However, the landing was very poorly marked, and as a result, I missed it.

HOWEVERRRRRRRRRRRRR.

That didn't stop the game from putting us in Oregon City. WE MADE IT.

Well, almost all of us made it.

RIP Marshall and Andrew.

(FYI, we scored 1,351 points. It was 60 points outside the Oregon Trail Top Ten.)