What must've it been like...

…to awake on the cold ground of a dreary morning to your 19th century father’s bark to get moving and hitch up the 20-mule team because “…we got a contract with Borax and are fixin’ to cross the Mojave, and when you’ve got all them leathers and traces hitched up and fixed get your self a piece of hardtack and one ladle of water to drink or wash with, don’t spill a drop…”

…I’m a 21st century man and feel put upon if I have to walk across the room to put bread in the toaster. Pioneering would not have been my thing. I’da been one of those guys who got off the boat in Plymouth, Massachusetts and directly headed to California but the privations drove me to despair and I only got as far as the great Green Mountain State of Vermont and stayed…