Volkswagen Blues

Jack and La Grande Sauterelle drive west, using The Oregon Trail Revisited to retrace the route established by the wagon caravans in the 1840s. The book not only guides them to the roads that follow the trail, but also quotes “passages from diaries the emigrants had kept during their journey” (121). While one of them drives, the other relates information from the book in such a way as to recreate scenes of wagons traveling the trail and weary emigrants stopping to camp for the night.

As Jack drives and the girl reads, he reflects on how intensely “she loved books and words” (124). She once made a remarkable observation about books that he now remembers: “A book is never complete in itself; to understand it you must put it in relation to other books, not just books by the same author, but also books written by other people” (124).

During their overnight stay in North Platte, Nebraska, they visit the Buffalo Bill Museum. When they learn that William F. Cody earned his nickname by slaughtering thousands of buffalo for the Northern Pacific Railroad, Jack realizes “that Buffalo Bill, like his brother’s other heroes and his brother himself, was about to come under fire” (125) from La Grande Sauterelle.