April 27, 1849
    We have been walking through the day, and sometimes into the night, since we left our homes in Independence. That is why I gladly agreed when our wagon train suggested stopping for a few days at the most beautiful place I had ever seen. There was a spring of water, which we used for swimming and drinking. I might do the laundry here, since the young children are covered in filth, and I imagine I look quite similar. We will not get quite as close to the leisurely life we led back home as we have today until we reach Oregon's wondrous land. The group has gotten extremely close, sharing games and fun. People of every age have joined in on learning these wonderful new games.
We all loved the games, and remembered our favorites for when we next rest.
    We have been eating many foods. I much prefer the rabbit stew we enjoyed for lunch this afternoon to the badger we ate last week. Why must we eat these horrid-tasting animals? Killing them has no benefit to us, with the exceptions of a few animals that make comfortable coats and hats to gain us the money we have lost and will need. We also picked beautiful fresh berries and vegetables.
    We must still milk the cows and wash dishes.

Salt Water 97.239%
Fresh Water 2.761%
Water in air 0.001%
Surface Water 0.01%
Ground Water 0.61%
Ice 2.14%


I was so surprised how much was salt water, even though I probably have it in a note somewhere. Some things never cease to amaze. I was also surprised how little water is in the air. Every day, as I look at the forecast, I see percentages in the 50%-60% range. I wonder what those numbers are out of. Or better yet, how much of the world's water is just in our local air every day.

      Our wagons are called prairie schooners. They are like small boats on wheels. We have decided to buy 6 of them. Unfortunately, that practically ruined our budget, so we had to cut our list a lot.  I do like the wagons, though. They look like beautiful carriages made for a king and queen. We have loaded them all with our supplies, and are ready to leave for Oregon. I hope we can make the 2,000 mile walk. I am pretty nervous because I have heard about these horrible problems people have encountered. I wish for smooth riding all the way to Oregon, although with 2,000 miles of room for error, it is highly unlikely my wish will become the truth. If only there was a faster way to transport us all across this tedious, lng trail. I so want to enjoy it, but I cannot rest my horrible thoughts of death or other problems just as dangerous.
     There are 70 wagons in our wagon train, and I wonder how many were quite that large. I was shocked to find I could count the large amount of wagons before me and my friends.



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I was pretty surprised to find out all the differences between wolves and coyotes, especially that from a wolf's front foot to their shoulder to their hip and down forms a square, but that on a coyote is a rectangle (see pictures below).

Some other things I was surprised to learn were that when the wolves were killed, the coyote's population exploded. I didn't realize how important wolves were to keeping coyotes in check. Another interesting thing was that they accept even elderly and sick, and I think that causes more people to die of unsanitary conditions than any other situation. It was also surprising to me that the wagons rode side by side on the trail. You'd think, with such deep tracks, they followed right behind each other. Did you know, back in the day, bug spray was buffalo and bear fat?
Also, I was really surprised to discover that a dog has a disease that can infect wolves and coyotes! Wow!

Overall, I think that the Science Fair was a valuable experience because I learned some things after my learning. I showed it to a lot of people, and some of them could even teach me things.

I definitely made some mistakes along the way, but I learned from them. Here are some examples. In my experiment, I only did one trial per brand. I couldn't learn from this now, but in the future I could. Another thing I made a mistake on was that I forgot to share all of my brands and my complete results. I did, however, add this into my presentation.

If I were give the chance to do anything differently, I would do more trials. It is way more valuable to have exact results over many trials. I might like to retry the experiment with multiple trials.

    When James McVee asked us why we were moving west, I told him that we are excited to go to Oregon because of the inexpensive, lush farmland, and to find new jobs to support our families. I also said that we wanted to find a little bit more room than we had in the overcrowded cities we were leaving behind, and the nicer weather we had heard of played a big role, too.
    I also told him about all the things I had heard about others moving to the gold in California, and that many wanted to become rich there from the precious metal. Also, many were talking about the horrors of being forced into the west.
    I introduced myself as Zeynep, and told him not only about the harsh conditions my crops suffered, but also about how my job had become unnecessary in the wave of time, and how I needed the beautiful crops expected from Oregon to make a living and survive.
    I continued to talk to him about how excited I was to get beautiful farmland and live in happiness for many years to come, and to meet people there and along the way with rough pasts and bright futures just like me. I also mentioned how I would fit in so much better in the wonderful life I had planned.