Covered Wagon Women, Volume 4: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1852: The California Trail

I loved the first 3 books and i was looking forward to buying and reading the whole series, but by the time i read 4 i was totally bored and burnt out. The diaries are tedious and contain little more then "Found food, no water" "can see indians off about a mile, did not come to our camp" Hundreds of pages of this and little more. i actually prefer the letters home then the diaries. They offer a more compressed form and seem to mention interesting facts and not just the mundane. I also prefer to hear more about what happened to them once they reach California and Oregon not how they got there. i dont think i will be buying another in this series unless it contains more of the letters and less of the diaries.

More adventurous accounts from the diaries and letters of six westward women. Braving the dangers of river fordings, cholera, fatigue, food and water shortages, etc. these women write with much ambience and flavor of their trail experiences.Seventeen year-old Eliza Ann McAuley is extremely descriptive and articulate of day to day activities along the way: remedies for cattle after drinking alkali water; ferry boats sinking; intolerable weather; constructing a makeshift road, later charging a toll to increase income; they even had a 'pet' antelope for six weeks while venturing west.Francis Sawyer was another very descriptive writer of daily occurences: first of all, her party traveled at a remarkable speed, many times averaging over thirty miles a day; depredations by Digger Indians along the Humboldt River; insufferable weather conditions, etc.Marriett Foster Cummings shoots from the hip when describing people (such as Jim Bridger and Brigham Young), places and incidents while crossing the country.Lucy Rutledge Cooke's letters read like a novel: very sincere, compassionate and composed in her writing style.These Covered Wagon series of books are an insightful look into our past and give the reader a sense of respect and connectedness to our yesteryears.

The way these people had to live is almost unbelivabl.The hardships and the frustrations were real.