The Oregon Trail: Gerald Hyland

June 29th; Fort Bridger

       You wanna know what's funny? Naime seeing the walls of logs and thinking that she'll have the opportunity to find a potential romantic interest. Man, Naime, why are you so desperate to find love? What's so great about it?

       Anyways, there were some people, and we traded some things for foods and all that fun stuff. Michael recovered from his disappointment at Devil's Gate, and we're back to having normal "meaningless" conversations. The kinds of talks we have may be "meaningless" to most people, because it's only about things we've done in the past, simple hopes for the future (like publishing books or starting up shops), and random things we see as we walk. But, to me, none of those conversations were meaningless. They mean the world to me.

       SPEAKING of Michael, I found out why he disappeared at Fort Laramie. We actually got here yesterday, and the day has passed, and today he told me that my dad needed my help with the oxen. He didn't exactly need my help, but I already told my dad I was there to help him, and he accepted my help before I realized that Michael was kidding when he said I was needed. I still helped him though; it seemed a bit rude to drop by someone and say "hey, I'm here to help you-oh wait nevermind, I don't want to".

       Michael had a reason, though. When I got back to our little camp, he took me behind a nearby building and gave me a cider cake, one just like the one he bought before. The only difference was that he made it himself. He claims that he's "not a good baker", but that cake was fantastic. We shared it, and there were some left over. He told me that I could hold onto it so that I can have some whenever I wanted to, but I told him that I'm going to save it so that we could share at another time.

       I know we're about halfway there, maybe more, so I'm hoping that we could keep in touch when we get to Oregon.