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Another cool thing from my day at the Oregon Trail National Interpretive Center:  Later that morning, I stood with the grandmother who had packed the miniature prairie schooner with me, looking at some pretty grim statistics.  A grave every 80 yards along the Oregon Trail. I said that I imagined that I would have been gung-ho about leaving the east but that as the going got rough and we reached the high desert mountains along the trail here, I might have become despondent, despairing of ever reaching our goal — and one of those grave markers along the trail might very likely have had my name on it.  She protested.  “No,” she said, “because you would have made friends with other people in the wagon train.  We would have supported you and helped you.  That’s what people do for one another.  You would have made it.” With her beside me, I believe I would have.