¹     When you travel, how do you get places? Do you ride in a car? Do you take a bus, a train, or a plane? It was not always that way. When Americans began to move west, they could walk, ride a horse, or take a wagon.
 
²     Many people wanted to go to the West. Some wanted to get rich mining gold. Some wanted to own land. Some wanted to have a fresh start in a new place.
 
³     There were many different trails or paths across America. The Oregon Trail was the most famous. It was not a road, but a path.
 
⁴     Most people used covered wagons to travel on the trail. They carried food, clothes, bedding, and other things. Some people carried too much stuff. When the hills got too steep, they had to leave some things behind. The wagons had to be made lighter to be pulled up mountains.
 
⁵     Life on the trail was not easy. People got up before sunrise. Then they walked all day. Sometimes they had fresh meat. Most times they had beans, rice, dried bread, and salt pork or salted fish.

Paragraphs 6 to 14:
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