In the spring of 1846, another road trip started in Missouri.  That year almost 500 wagons departed Independence for the far west of California and Oregon. At the end of that “train” were nine wagons that belonged to the Reed and Donner families.  Their journey, plagued from the start, seemed doomed to end in tragedy.  I’ll not chronicle the trials that befell the group and only say that in November of 1846, 87 – 90 members (depending on whose account you read) of the party became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada.  Forty-seven survived.