A day’s journey on the Oregon Trail could begin beside the Snake River and end at camp on the Malheur River amid sagebrush, sand, dust, heat, and exhaustion. Travelers walked 15 miles, then still had to cook, make camp, and care for animals while breathing smoke, eating plain food fouled by dust and ashes, and enduring the smells of sweat, livestock, and dead cattle rotting in the heat. Emigrant accounts recalled wagons sinking deep into sandy ground and rising over sagebrush, hard travel across barren plains under a scorching sun, simple food tasting especially good after fatigue, and dust so deep and blinding that people were covered with it, animals staggered coughing, and eyes grew painfully sore.