Hi i'm Grace and this is my story with our travel west. We want to be homesteaders and settle west. I am not going on this journey alone. I am going with my family. We are leaving because we want a new life where we own our own property. We live in Philadelphia but we are going to try to head to the Great Plains. The Great Plains brings free land and lots of it.

Great

Preparations:

Before we left we gathered everything we could fit in our wagon and my parents said goodbye to our family and began our journey. We created a route map starting in Philadelphia and if everything goes to plan we will end our journey and settle in the Great Plains.

Philadelphia 

Missouri river

Great Plains

The journey was hard but not impossible, the temperature was warm but not hot, we decided to start our journey in march. My dad was previously a farmer in the south before he moved to Philadelphia so he knew from friends that had already made it there that spring is a better season to grow. Rain happen occasionally but the worst is when we saw a tornado near Iowa. We decided to head more south and came across Missouri river.  "We still have some way to go but we will make it" My dad says.

We rested there but soon came the hard part, trying to cross it. We first got my mom and sister and me across then my dad pushed the wagon and we guided the horses. It was very scary but we made it. As we continued our journey we met some other homesteaders. They seemed friendly and were headed to what is known as South Dakota. Unfortunately we started running out of supplies and my sister became sick. We decided to hunker down near a forest semi near the river we had just crossed for a while.  Weeks passed and we were finally ready to continue. We needed to pick up the pase but everyone was tired.

The journey continued and me and my sisters continued our chores. I would fetch the water and store it from rivers and rain. My sister Megan would collect wood along the way that we could fine although it was very hard to find wood on the great plains. Lastly my sister Brittany would help my dad guide the wagon and help my mom with us and such. We all had important duties to keep us safe and learn for when we find home.

After months of travel we finally made it to Kansas. We started building our sod home and making the farm ours. There is not a lot of wood or trees nearby.Dad did the crops while me and my sister helped some. My mother mostly helped around the house but help with the farm to

More months passed we soon found out how bad the great plains could be.The droughts were hot and the blizzards were cold. The weather was very extreme but could be beneficial. Although one month we had a tornado which hurt the crops but luckily we made it out okay. The soil was the best part about the plains. Perfect for farming.  After the seasons we started a different type of technique known as dry farming techniques.