Anything Goes by John Barrowman

Author:John Barrowman [Barrowman, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978–1–84317–425–7
Publisher: Michael O' Mara Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

‘Love Changes Everything’

The Donner Party was a wagon train of pioneer families that travelled west from Illinois to California in the 1840s. Winter trapped them in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Eventually, out of eighty or so emigrants who began the trek, only about half survived. The circumstances in the camps where they holed up for shelter became so desperate during that winter that a few in the group succumbed to cannibalism, eating their dead friends and family to survive.

The Donner Party story fascinates Scott and me. We are both really interested in this period of nineteenth-century American history. We love nothing more than carrying our dinner on trays into the living room at our Kensington-Chelsea home, pouring a vodka tonic, and watching a historical documentary like Ric Burns’s The Donner Party on the flat screen mounted above the fireplace.1

The tale of the Donner Party has become almost mythical in American history. A group of people venturing into the unknown, travelling a road not previously travelled in order to achieve a better life, and because of bad navigation and stupid risks most of them never made it to their destination. In 2000, Scott and I took a road trip through the American West that included tracing the Donner Party’s path. That journey has become just as legendary in our relationship as the trail itself in history. For me, in particular, it cemented in my head and engraved on my heart what I already knew. I wanted to be with this Englishman for the rest of my life.

We took lots of crisps and sandwiches with us just in case.

The trip started with skiing at Lake Tahoe. It was my first time skiing, but after only one or two times down the beginners’ slope, I was a pro. Ask Scott. He’ll tell you I was gliding down the most difficult runs and actually skiing better than him by the end of the day. Well, maybe he won’t tell you that.

While we could still move the most important muscles in our bodies – our legs, our legs – we packed up the rented SUV and headed out of South Lake Tahoe to take the mountain route across the state. When Scott examined the map, this looked like a much shorter way than going down into the valley and then back up again. Our plan was to head south to Yosemite and then work our way northeast to Utah to see the Mormon Trail and visit Salt Lake City.2

Before we left Lake Tahoe, I noticed our petrol gauge was edging close to a quarter tank. No worries. We both assumed there would be a filling station before we left the Tahoe area. We secured Penny and Lewis3 in the back of the SUV and went south. We quickly realized how wrong we were. For some reason, all the petrol stations we drove past were closed. We kept driving into the mountains towards Mono Lake, expecting at any time to come to an open garage. There were none.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.