13 Things You Probably Didn’t Know Were Invented In OREGON

I am taking my 13-year-old daughter, Willow, on a camping trip to Oregon in a few weeks. We are both so excited!

We haven’t been to Oregon as a family in a long time; I think she was a mere three years old when we had our last trip there. We went to Portland to visit some friends and she hasn't set one foot in Oregon since then!

For our upcoming drive down from Central Washington to our Oregon camping destination near the Columbia River, I was just thinking that I could share with her some fun knowledge about The Beaver State.

THE OREGON TRAIL

I grew up in Nashville, Tenn., and although everything I learned about Oregon was limited, I gleaned some important facts by playing Oregon Trail.

Do you remember playing the Oregon Trail game as a kid? We LOVED playing that game in middle school (and I would always be fighting over my turn to play).

I can vividly remember always eating yogurt-covered raisins as I played The Oregon Trail, so thinking about the game always brings back some good (and tasty memories).

I learned that people “died of dysentery” and cholera on the way to Oregon. I still am not quite sure what dysentery even is...

Pioneers on The Oregon Trail game had an epidemic of of broken wagon wheels, and when that wasn't happening, the were losing their stuff out of the back of the wagon, getting eaten by bears (if I'm not mistaken), getting attacked by armed bandits along the way.

And that was just in the first 10 minutes of the game!

The Oregon Trail game conveniently forgot to include that some of those Western colonizers murdered thousands of indigenous people in order to claim their land. That's just straight facts.💯

Besides the horrific and racist tragedies and deaths along the real Oregon Trail and those of the post-modern era, I also want to share with my kiddo some good things that Oregon is known for, especially the cool people you can meet and that there is much to enjoy in Oregon.

Things like…

• The Gorgeous Scenery!

• Beautiful Coastline Beaches!

• Portland!

• The Dalles!

• Voodoo Donuts!

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I am also going to share with my daughter that these popular things were invented here!

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