Almost There
Last spring, I had the good fortune to retrace the steps of the Donner Party. This post is part of the story of my journey. If you want to begin at the beginning, go here first. Big thanks to the Indiana Arts Council for helping to make this happen.
Dear Nevada: You gave us hail and wind and road construction for 4 straight hours. But I forgive you. Because in Elko, you gave us delicious pasties at B.J. Bull’s.
Thank you.
So, if my trip west was a movie, this would be the part where the scary music would start. And things would get quiet. And dark. And tense. Like you know something bad is about to happen.
The closer we got to Reno, to the western edge of Nevada, the more tense everything felt around us.
For starters, every 3 inches there were giant warning signs about snow tires. Flashing lights that would warn you when you couldn’t go on without them.
This was May, granted. We didn’t have to worry about that. But it was such an ominous feeling, knowing that even today there are times when we can’t cross the mountains coming ahead, times when even with snow tires the road will be closed.
How brave it was to try to do this on foot in 1846, to do this while hauling every single thing you owned and animals and babies and wearing a skirt for crying out loud.
The mountains were majestic and serious.
And still – days before Memorial Day—covered with snow at the tops.
As we got even closer to the California line, one of the kids said, “Mom! It looks just like your book cover!”
And they were right. Just imagine some snow on that.
See?
We got a nice “Welcome to California” sign right as we reached the foot of the slopes.
I don’t imagine the Graves family knew exactly where the edge of California stood. I don’t imagine they cared at that point. Because it was here that they reached the edge of the mountains and looked up to see the tops were covered in white. It was here that Franklin Graves, a Vermont man, no stranger to mountain snow, said he wasn’t waiting any longer for Mr. Donner’s hand to heal, that his family was going to start climbing up those mountains now. Before it was too late.
Here’s where I imagine the panic began to sprout.
For us, we’d been dealing with terrible weather for almost the whole day. As we neared the mountains, it finally let up. I was so relieved. Relieved to be able to rest for a few days, relieved to be finally there, relieved that the storm had passed.
Quite the opposite of Mary Ann.
We checked into our cabin and walked out onto the deck and saw a rainbow over the lake.
It was perfect.
For the next post in this series, go here.