Hello From the Oregon Trail

I live below Twin Falls, Idaho near the Snake River. The Oregon Trail actually was on both sides of the river here. The view from my kitchen looks north over the river and I can see the Sawtooth, Lost River, Lemhi and Bitterroot.

 For two years I drove the Idaho State bus to school at Pocatello. At early dawn we would be at Raft River where the California trail split off from the Oregon and I picked up a young couple who lived there. She told of her father kicking around in the brush on the creek bank one day and finding a dugout with trunks sticking out of the bank and clothes inside and a partial human skeleton. Someone had failed the rigorous test. 

It was said that when the traveling companions separated here at the fork, some cried and some let them part without saying a word; some abandoned their dreams and caught up with the friends they had made.

I just sent for a Carl's Sourdough Starter which came down the Oregon Trail in '47. I wonder if I could catch my own at some of the old camp sites. I love the stories at Sourdough International Dot Com, how they have starts from all over the world. It takes the whole village to raise a child ... and a whole world to raise bread.

I just looked out. The sunrise has pinks and purples on the sky and soft red reflections on the broken snow on the Sawtooth. The valleys are shadows. Time to feed the horses. They are getting cranky.