I’ve always been fascinated with the Oregon Trail. The complete badassery, dedication, and determination that it took to cross the unchartered west has always left me inspired. So when it came time to plan my 28th birthday, I decided there was no better time than the present to go ALL OUT and embrace the adventure.
An Oregon Trail themed bar crawl is a little different from the other adventures you’ll find here on Ramble State, but stick with me because if you loved learning about the Oregon Trail and playing the computer game as much as we did, this was a hilariously good time. First came the invites. I love having an opportunity to be creative and making custom invitations while going all-in on theme makes my heart sing.
With the invites sent, we were HYPED. We’re based in San Diego and planned the crawl through North Park since they arguably have some of the best craft beer and bars in the city. All of these bars were in only a .7mi stretch, so it made it easy to hop from fort to fort (bar to bar). My good friend (S/O, Dani!) had even gifted me the Oregon Trail card game for my birthday to make it easy to plan a drinking game for the trail (crawl). Even though I forgot to bring them on the actual bar crawl, this is how to adapt the card game to play:
Disease cards: Cholera, Dysentery, Measles, Typhoid. Drawing a disease card requires you to take a shot of the dealer’s choosing.
Medicine cards: A friend on the trail can bail you out of having to take your shot if they share this card.
Event cards: Snake bite, broken wagon tongue, dead oxen, or broken axle. Drawing one of these cards results in you having to buy a shot for a friend on the trail of your choosing.
Spare Parts/Town Cards: Receiving one of these cards bails you out of having to fulfill the consequences of an event card.
Dealing the hand: Once someone on the trail has been dealt a card by the wagon leader, they must fulfill the required consequence/bail out. Once accomplished, the card may be passed onto another in the party.
Now that we were all gathered and set, it was time to roll out!! Everyone’s get-up was so GREAT; from bonnets and aprons to genuine suede and cowboy hats – this group showed up to party.
This was a birthday to remember, and at the time I didn’t realize it, but it was the grand start of a great tradition. <3
Happy Rambles!
xoxo, Leah
