The Jumping-off City

Courthouse in town square, Nevada, Missouri.

I didn’t quite make it to Kansas City last night, so I stopped short in the small town of Nevada, Missouri and spent the workday between the motel there and a coffee shop — which after I arrived, I realized was actually a church.

After work, I packed up to leave and noticed in the group chat that Evan and George were both broken down. I was torn between a little schadenfreude and crying — we’d come so far already, it can’t all go to hell now. Not sure what else to do, I stopped for gas and headed north to see if I could at least help George. But as I was hopping on the freeway…

I’m un-broken-down. But let’s just say, uh, if you’re looking forward to a road trip without range anxiety, you’re going to be disappointed.

George, irritated.

So I’m guessing he ran out of gas. Like he does. Evan said he also got going again — by waiting a little bit and adding more gas. So that’s gotta be an overheating fuel pump. Which he said 1) he already has a replacement for, and 2) he’d made an appointment tomorrow morning to get help swapping it out. Back underway!

Wanting to meet at roughly the same time, George set up camp in a Starbucks near the restaurant and I took shelter in a different Starbucks across the highway in a Target with my book. And when I just couldn’t stand it any longer

Mystery Wagon Actually a Wagon

When I rolled up, I could not believe my eyes. George and I recognized each other instantly — what else would either of these vehicles be doing on the road? But I cannot believe he did that. And while I was standing there, beyond stupefied, Evan rolled up.

I brought the only covered wagon.

The other two have these unbelievable mid-engine contraptions.

Our mule team assembled: my 1995 Volvo 850 Wagon, George’s 1986 Pontiac Fiero, and Evan’s right-hand drive 1989 Isuzu Piazza Nero (a Japanese import that would have been called an Isuzu Impulse and differently equipped in the US).

Dear reader, if I may share in confidence: I was feeling profoundly upstaged.

1995 Volvo 850

(Photos from the dealer, I have since removed the steering wheel cover, replaced the shift knob with a factory one, and fixed that airbag panel.)

Back in initial planning when Evan said we might all have to have wagons, I was immediately nauseated. But the idea grew on me. I can commit to a theme! Austin’s used car market left me with with no options of any kind. San Antonio’s left me with few options in-budget (which apparently only I had decided to stick to). But among them them was this lumbering, air-conditioned, standard, red, spacious wagon. The obvious choice to be my perfect prairie schooner.

1986 Pontiac Fiero

I cannot believe, even a little bit, that George actually owns this. No wonder its previous owner made him promise to take good care of it. And if nothing else, there is one very George-thing about it: its fuel tank is tiny and its mileage is bad. This thing is amazing. It is also tiny. George gave me a tour of its engine bay, how he’d managed to rig storage for three weeks of luggage and tools, and showed off how the sunroof glass can be removed and stowed.

1989 Isuzu Piazza Nero

Unlike George’s automotive surprise, I can imagine no one other than Evan owning this. He looked at a long line of cars to arrive at this one, but apparently Tulsa has a JDM (“Japanese Domestic Market”) importer and he asked them if they had anything with a standard transmission and this was the only “cool” thing they had. And no, it did not run when he bought it. Lots of electrical problems which caused engine timing issues in addition to the fuel delivery situation — which he had to fix to get the car up here. It is everything. And it’s right-hand drive!

I did notice a badge on it that said “Handling by Lotus.” I don’t know much about Lotus except Lots Of Trouble; Usually Serious.

The 1885 Queen Ann

Yes, that is its name on the VRBO listing.

I experienced this last time with the Celica. Reaching the starting city was also a major finish line celebration. So dinner and the beverages that followed noted both an accomplishment and a grand start. After dinner, we headed up into Independence, Missouri — east Kansas City — to our gigantic historic mansion.

I knew the place was big from the listing, but I didn’t know it would be four stories: huge tv room and recording studio in the basement; massive kitchen, grand dining room, and stately tv-less living room on the ground floor; two large en-suite bedrooms on the second floor in which we’ve taken residence; and three smaller bedrooms and a bathroom with a strangely showcased shower on the third floor.

George and I both work tomorrow. And I have my final 7:45am “special week” meeting at the ass-crack of dawn. So we called it an early night.

Oh wait. No. No, obviously we did not do that. We explored what will be our palace for the next two nights and then swapped car acquisition and repair stories — complete with some compiled selfie video diary — and put a fender-bender on a bottle of rye.

From [St. Joseph], stretching more than a hundred miles southeast in a series of giant horseshoe bends, the Missouri [River’s] course had defined the edge of the frontier. For twenty years before the Civil War, the jumping-off towns along the river — Independence, Kansas City, Westport, St. Joe, and the Mormon crossing from Council Bluffs, Iowa [near present day Omaha] — had bustled with departing trail traffic. Mule brokers, wagon dealers, and outfitters selling flour and sides of cured bacon competed fiercely for the new business that arrived every spring. Most of these towns were founded expressly to serve the Oregon Trail pioneers or the military forts. […] The sudden boost in economic activity along the frontier helped the country recover from the devastating impact of the Panic of 1837. On a busy spring day, when everyone seemed to be launching for the trails at once, there were dozens of ferries and barges crossing with wagons at each spot, so thick on the river that it was said someone could step from barge to barge to get across to the far bank.

Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey.

Previously on Route Not Found: The Oregon Trail

Lowell Point. End of The Alaska Highway. September 2019. (Damn I miss that Celica.)

Yes, there will be a fourth! After much drinking deliberation, we decided our next epic cheap car cross-country challenge would be to recreate The Oregon Trail, inspired by the video game we all know and love — which I researched as a computer history icon as we played it. And after a badly needed rematch, I started looking into the people and places mentioned in the game. (And at least one reader must watch some of either playthru because of how damn long they took to edit.)

  1. Taylor, Carpenter, 3270 points, 2 casualties (including Evan), good health (but only at the end…)
  2. George, Banker, 2199 points, 0 casualties (showoff), fair health
  3. Evan, Banker, 1007 points, 3 casualties (including Taylor), fair health

In short, across three games: I won, but it was treacherous. George died of dysentery. Evan is probably our best keyboard-rifleman, but he killed me in a river crash.

Having crossed the great virtual plains thrice, we figured ourselves expert enough to start some route planning of our own.

We overlaid the official NPS Oregon National Historic Trail (red line, which the game is quite faithful to) with a pair of detours we wanted to add (Black Hills NF/Badlands NP and Craters of the Moon NM).

Then we booked a whole lot of places to stay. I’m excited to report that for the most part, they seem like interesting spots (our only generic hotel stay at least has a water park in the lobby). We also absolutely peppered the map with points of interest, parks, historical markers, quirky attractions, and places where you can still see the old wagon ruts from the mid-1800s migration.

And… I started reading books about the Oregon Trail (the historic migration, not the video game), which is quite a new leaf for me to have turned over.

I also figured out how to work Hastings Cutoff (of Donner-Reed Party Disaster note) into my route: from Fort Bridger, I’ll make a detour down to Salt Lake City to pick up Evan G on Hastings Cutoff, which was later developed into The Mormon Pioneer Trail, carrying Mormon migrants from The Oregon Trail in Wyoming down into Utah.

Once we finalized our stopovers and I did a little more web development, we turned our attention to wagon-ry! As we did for the AlCan, we again decided to buy local. The lingering effects the pandemic (and the following boom and recession) disrupted what we knew of of the bottom-dollar jalopy market; namely, everything is much more expensive and in worse repair. So having more time to buy and fix ahead of time is super helpful. Before long, George and I struck gold the same night — wagons acquired. Two anyway… and there was much angst from our wagonless comrade until he, too, found… something.

And we’re again keeping the cars secret from each other until we meet! So while details are thin at this point, a few things have been revealed:

  • I bought in San Antonio, and the quest to get both cars up to Austin involved a train heist and raising the eyebrow of my office’s security guard.
  • I may have gotten a much better deal than George. And the previous owner of George’s car made him promise to take good care of it. (He’s so screwed.)
  • Evan may have bought a vehicle that was dead on a dealer lot for over a year, but the dealer was willing to cut the price in half to get rid of it.
  • On a particularly dark weekend, George kept running into “surprise jobs” while Evan toiled to figure out why his exhaust manifold gets so hot it glows and my wagon became undriveable.
  • We’re all better now: with Evan declaring that he won’t need to buy a replacement car. I kinda addressed my calamity with a junkyard part. And George did some car work with his Dad (and made us a swanky dinner reservation for our reunion night).
  • Then, with one last weekend to prepare, the picture began looking somewhat less rosy. George said, “Okay, so I think my final score for tonight is 2x ‘I MENDED SOMETHING’ and only one ‘I MADE SOMETHING ELSE WORSE.’ There’s a new noise, but I am choosing to believe it’s not important.” Evan said, “The old problem is I thought the steering wheel was off-center and needed alignment… But turns out its off-centerness changes based on which way I turned most recently. So uhh… That isn’t ideal.” And I have some waterproofing and tire concerns — and finally decided to just replace that stupid part from a dealer.

And realizing it had been a while since we’d spoken of the game, I found an ancient article identifying some of the music featured in the 1990 PC-DOS release of The Oregon Trail and collected it into a Spotify playlist. I assume no one will listen to it (it’s not exactly my style either), but it was fun to do the digging.

Then against all logical decision-making, on top of a heavy week work and wild last-minute migration prep…

I bought Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom which I absolutely do not have time to play, but absolutely must. So I put my Nintendo in my bookbag (which again, surprising us all, has actual books in it), too.

And finally, nearly a year into the planning, at the end of a remarkably hectic day, with just 48 hours until we meet in Independence, Missouri, I set off on a rural adventure of my own through northeast Texas, safely making it to my halfway stopover in Texarkana. We meet in Independence tonight.

Now nothing remains to be done, but to notice the method of traveling, which I shall proceed to do, with as much brevity as is consistent with the importance of the subject. Emigrants should, invariably, arrive at Independence, Missouri on, or before, the fifteenth day of April, so as to be in readiness to enter upon their journey, on or before, the first day of May; after which time, they should never start if it can possibly be avoided. The advantages to be derived from setting out at as early a day as that above suggested, are those of having an abundance of good pasturage in passing over those desolate and thirsty plains, and being enabled to cross the mountains before the falling of mountains of snow, or floods, or rain, which usually occurs in that region early in October. Before leaving the rendezvous, emigrants should always organize, by dividing into such companies, and electing such officers, as shall be deemed necessary.

Lansford W. Hastings, The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California. Collected in “Oregon Trail Stories” (David Klausmeyer). (Yes, that Hastings, and yes, this is an excerpt from his famous guidebook that was often carried by emigrant trains.)

Wagon Launch

It’s been a big day today. 7:30 a.m. meeting; long overdue haircut; coffee with a friend who’s moving away; drove to the office which promptly lost power, internet, and cell service; left the Xterra there while we’re on the trip; Lyfted home, sent an announcement to the department that I will be transitioning to a new team on my return; had one more “until soon;” and set off for Texarkana in The Mystery Wagon.

Perhaps tempting fate, I have opted for a rural route through Northeast Texas rather than conventional wisdom of staying on I-35/135/335 from here to Kansas City, which you can do, but that’s no fun.

UPDATE: I made it to Texarkana. Kinda wish there had been a remote-work-friendly city a little short of that because of early morning meetings, but now that I’m in Arkansas, I’m feeling very much underway. Also I finally bought wagon insurance and a one-way flight home at a rest stop — oops — so it’s all very real now.

When we came to the ferry on Platte River, there was hundreds of wagons waiting to be ferried over which would cause a week of delay. So our captain thought best we should keep up on the north side of the river. All day long, we had noticed the distant rumbling of thunder with an occasional shower. When we reached the ford of Loop fork of the Platte, we found it rising so the orders was to cross as many wagons that evening as possible. The men went to work with a will. They forded about half of the wagons over that night, then drove all the cattle over. During the night, there came up a terrific storm of rain and wind, blew all our tents down. The men had to run the wagons side by side as close as possible to keep them from turning over.

In the morning, the storm was over by we had a rushing river before us. [We got report that driving upriver and crossing a stream to an island, the crossing would be easier.] But oh horrors, the stream kept rising until our little island was laced by streams running every which way. [After being stalled 9 days, we corked and tarred the best of our wagons to prevent leaking and continue the crossing.] So at it they went and by the eleventh night we were all safely over.

Martha Ann Tuttle McClain, Crossing the Plains in 1853 (written 1903). Collected in “Oregon Trail Stories” (David Klausmeyer).

Final Prep Weekend

We meet in Independence in four days, so each of us has been making the most of our final weekend of prep time. Seeing as none of us know what the other has, I instead offer for the record a few excerpts from the group chat, with what context I have been able to gather.

George

Okay, so I think my final score for tonight is 2x “I MENDED SOMETHING” and only one “I MADE SOMETHING ELSE WORSE”

George took the “Fire Truck” to Edmond to work on it with his Dad — and also to hide it from Evan. He’ll be basing his trip from there, so he has, in effect, already left on this journey.

I think I may have found the actual problem with the thing I made worse, in the process of making it worse. So if I can find the right [redacteds] for it I might just be able to mend it.

Overall, for me, there’s a new noise, but I am choosing to believe it’s not important. The main thing is that I solved a GIANT vacuum leak.

Evan

Ok so the trip home with the car was not uneventful. One old problem that I probably need to deal with and one new one.

So that means he got it good enough to leave the garage with it. That’s a good sign, right?

Old problem is I THOUGHT the steering wheel was off center and needed alignment… But turns out it’s off-centerness changes based on which way I turned last. So uhh… That isn’t ideal.

The new one appears to be heat related and I suspect is another bad ground rearing it’s ugly head.

I really cannot wait to hear the full details on this story because he knew this vehicle would require significant work, and he seems to have pulled it off. … Mostly?

Today was a very bad car day for me. I tried to fix a problem with the steering and it took forever and I’m pretty sure I didn’t fix it anyway.

And then there’s me

That “functionally adequate but looks like garbage” fix of mine from the other day failed to inspire sufficient confidence, so I decided to throw some dealer money at my problem to get the actually-correct part. I ran a few trip preparation errands this weekend, including a confidence-building drive in heavy rain, so I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about my upcoming departure on Tuesday.

I have discovered some additional quirks this weekend that I hadn’t noticed before… And a non-critical electrical feature seems to have given up the ghost, but I don’t think I have the time required to fix it. I did receive my vehicle’s title from the DMV. Also, I believe I’ve put together that I paid less than the other two, possibly by a lot.

Oh and I have new waterproofing concerns.

It’s been storming in Tulsa, OKC, and Austin — and each of us have some worries about waterproofing… and how we don’t seem to have it.

I’ve been quite foolish.

Leaving Tuesday. Still have route planning to do. Still have (another new!) Oregon Trail book to read. Still have video to edit. Still have packing to do. (Which requires the laundry I still have to do.) Still have a mountain of work to do. And probably still have necessary car repairs yet undiscovered. But I’ve just bought myself a present because I was left briefly unsupervised with a credit card.

I said I wasn’t going to buy the new Zelda game until after the trip… oops.

Helped out at a high-speed spontaneous poetry writing workshop with Evan G today. They brought typewriters for everyone to use! This may not win me a Robert Frost Medal, but I gave it a shot. (Complete with a historical reference I’ll work into a future post.)

The Frontier Soundtrack

During our three play-throughs of the 1990 The Oregon Trail, I was amused at the “music” that would beep loudly during the “cutscenes” (still images) marking key stopovers and landmark waypoints on the crossing.

Soundtracks in video games at that time was mostly an exercise in the most musically-adjacent use of the computer’s variable-pitch terminal beep. But most of the songs were easily recognizable classics. I went looking to see if anyone had made a list of those songs and stumbled across “My Gaming Audio History: Oregon Trail (1985),” compiled by Blogger user Matthew Thompson in 2013, which I have turned into a Spotify playlist:

  • Leaving Independence, MO: Yankee Doodle
  • Kansas River: I Gave My Love a Cherry
  • Big Blue River: Oh Dear!  What Can the Matter Be?  (Johnny’s So Long at the Fair)
  • Fort Kearney: The Campbells are Coming
  • Chimney Rock: Auld Lang Syne
  • Fort Laramie: Billy Boy
  • Independence Rock:  Wayfaring Stranger
  • Fort Bridger:  Where Has My Laddie Gone?  (Blue Bells of Scotland)
  • Green River Crossing:  All Through the Night
  • Soda Springs: Charlie Is My Darling
  • South Pass: Believe Me, Of All Those Endearing Young Charms.
  • Fort Hall: Skip to My Lou
  • Snake River Crossing: O Shenandoah
  • Fort Boise:  On Top of Old Smokey
  • Grande Ronde in the Blue Mountains: Long Long Ago
  • Fort Walla Walla:  Flow Gently Sweet Afton
  • The Dalles: Jimmy Crack Corn (Blue Tail Fly)
  • Willamette Valley:  Viva la compangie (Viva l’amour)

I tried to find instrumental versions, skewing bluegrass/country-ish when possible, of these. Many are released largely (or even exclusively…) as lullabies and singalongs (from which I have protected you). And more than I expected were Irish or Scottish folk songs, which I suppose may be historically accurate given continued European immigration.

This may not be my Oregon Trail equivalent of the Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix tape, as the Mystery Wagon has newfangled Bluetooth, but it was fun to find all this music.

And now three, for real.

Evan sent this to the group earlier this evening.

I have no reason to believe I’ll need to buy a second car. Probably.

So the exhaust manifold no longer gets so hot that it glows. Apparently the ECU had a bad ground, which was causing it to slow the timing at load, which was causing combustion flames to enter the manifold. So that’s a whole thing.

And a replaced gasket on the vacuum pod for good measure.

This means his car is new enough to have ignition timing determined by the ECU. Detectives, get out your service manuals.

But that’s odd… because he also wailed about the state of his distributor (which he also had to take apart and put back together). Of the three of us, I am the least knowledgeable on such matters — and I look forward to being thoroughly schooled about this in Missouri — but I thought either one might have a distributor (like, say, The Truck) or you would have computer-controlled ignition timing (like, say, Xterra the Younger), but not both… but apparently Evan’s mystery wagon… has both?

In the meantime, I gave up and put in a call to a dealer in Austin for the proper replacement to the mission-critical part I tried to salvage from a junkyard. They wanted to be paid … more than I wanted to pay … but I’m hoping the output will reduce the heckling from G&E, instill more confidence from me and Evan G, and — with any luck — allow this to go unnoticed by a Portland buyer.

I just asked George if he’s been up to anything of conseuqence:

I’ve been doing stuff! I’ve been fixing grounds and opening doors and trying to make it idle properly.

And even more exciting than all that obviously made-up nonsense — George has made us a dinner reservation! In Independence, Missouri. For exactly one week from tomorrow where the six of us will meet.