American Wagon Trains

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

I recently enjoyed a prolonged vacation with my mother and dog, taking in the beauty of national parks. I had a big-sky fantasy about car camping our way through some of the northern cowboy states, where so much of the history of the West still survives. My machinations had us winding our path through long stretches of empty freeways and slithering through dense mountain forests. For three weeks we hit three different states, through scorching heat, whipping winds, and drenching rain, eroding the rubber on our tires with every mile. Our diets consisted of too much dining out, a childlike pleasure of indulging in many a marshmallow, and more fast food in three weeks than I have eaten in three years.

We headed out of Fort Collins north toward our first stop, one of my must-sees from our loose itinerary. Guernsey, Wyoming, had a symbol on Google Maps for the “Women Pioneers of the Oregon Trail,” and an adjacent park that had more mentions of the trail. Having grown up dying of dysentery on a regular basis, I had a nostalgic soft spot for the Oregon Trail; I saw this opportunity as a chance to fulfill an unknown bucket-list life experience. I thought it was going to be a museum, but really, it was just a couple of preserved and memorialized locations.

The historical landmark ended up being the Oregon Trail ruts. For those of you like me, who don't know what ruts are, it is where the wheels of the wagon trains have left indentations that persist to this day marking the path of the trail. From 1841 to 1848, over 10,000 people out of the 500,000 who braved the trip didn’t survive—men, women, and children. Yet, over half a million settlers still set out on the adventure. These ruts are the physical relic left behind by the thousands of wagons that carried many of Americans across the plains. Not just something constituted in memoriam, this was left by those who made the journey history.

So many wagon trains traced their stories over this portion of Wyoming. So much so, that we can stand next to the divots, witnessing the history in the present. There, on the crest of the hill that overlooks the bank, is the North Platte River—a river that proved to be one of many death-defying obstacles families of the past had to prepare for if they were going to reach their destination. Whether it was Utah, Oregon, a land settlement, or gold rush territory. The families that set out on this risk mobilized their possessions, invested in transportation, and hit the wide-open horizon. Cresting those hills as they drudged across the treacherous plains they experienced an unmolested land of sparse trees, prickly weeds, cascading mountains and flowing flat lands of grain.

A week later by the time we left Wyoming, I had a thought. Well, of course, I had many thoughts on this journey, but this one was specific to Wagon Trains. Watching all the RVs pull in and pull out of campsites every day—never staying long enough to explore and always on their way to the next destination—I realized we haven’t changed our transportation goals all that much over the last almost 200 years. We are still making our way through the same mountains, and we still seek adventure where we are reaching for that next life goal to fulfill. Made possible by packing our possessions into a nomadic home. As one town transformed into another on the road, dragging from one curve around to another, I saw the similarity continue to manifest.

Today, families spend big money on the modern-day wagon train. They may not be looking for a new life; in fact, I see most of them as trying to bypass the life they currently lead in exchange for the experience of adventure their ancestors undertook. Taking in the beauty of the land and roaming from one romance of nostalgia to the next. They try to live up to the adage, "You have done more in a couple of years than many have in a lifetime." Truth; our ancestors experienced and lived through more of life’s obstacles than our elders.

I make the correlation not because Rv’s vs. Wagon trains represent same historical relevance, but because as a species we have not changed all that much. Many of us at our core are explorers. We are driven by a desire to discover and seek new horizons—especially Americans. It is the spirit of a people who were adventurers and risk-takers that led to the ethos that exists even among today’s American immigrants.

Our ancestors sought out and took risks; that meant escape, opportunity, community, freedom, prosperity, or love. They represented an agency that invested in the unknown and put their faith in hope. People all across the US travel in the modern day Wagon Train from one place to the next, seeking escape, community, freedom, adventure, and a love for the new. I am not totally sure why, but they travel, and when the RV and the travelers are done, it ends up in the automobile graveyard.

I am not making an equivalence regarding the structural relevance of what the Wagon Train of the 19th century is to the RV of the 21st century and what they represent ethnologically. But day-after-day seeing the assembly of travelers, it is hard to escape the trail of RVs on the road these days and not see a symbolism or similarity to the wagon trains of old. There is no hope of new land we are chasing only the existence of unfulfilled dreams. And so we find a way to roam.

No matter how many generations fill our genealogy charts, we as a species are still drawn to a lifestyle that has us investing in a home on the go. It seems there is a freedom on the road; you know the direction you want to go, but it's the journey that makes up the stories that become the epics of our lives.

The moment I was searching for—the one that memorialized the glamour I sought in nature—was an early morning sunrise, with red creeping over the mountain tops of the Black Hills through the sheen of morning dew. It was a power more potent than strength: beauty. And it filled me with the hope I was seeking, letting me know I was on the right journey.

Do you have an RV or camper? What pulls you to the road? Where do you escape to? How do you experience freedom? What is freedom? When is it time to follow opportunity, and where will it lead? These are some of the questions we grapple with everyday. No matter the day and age, we can all see the beauty in risk, and the allure of wonder and escape.

For those inspired by the tales of the Oregon Trail here is a poem from a settler who experienced the risk firsthand. https://www.oregonpioneers.com/miller1.htm