I found this linked on another board I post at. I thought it was too brilliant not to share.
On the Oregon Trail
If you've played the game, or if your kids played the game you will get it right away. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Oregon Trail was/is (?) a computer game about the Oregon Trail. In the newer versions, you can start from various points east and end at various points west, travel in different decades and interact with other characters. In the old classic version, you started in Independence and ended up in the Willamette Valley. Your character could start out at various positions in life (farmers had the least cash, bankers the most, can't remember what was in between) and the goal was to getyourself and your family to Oregon. The game featured something like 8 colors, really cheesey and distinctive music, and the graphics themselves were rather...geometric. You got to name the members of your party. You passed various landmarks and dealt with various problems. The story linked is fairly typical for the game - it was hard to win.
I still get the giggles and grins whenever S and I make the drive to Seattle and pass through the Blue Mountains. Almost there! After that it's the Dalles and the river-floating bit! Except, of course, we're in a car, there's a bridge, we're going to Seattle, we've been vaccinated for the measles and aren't worried about dysentery (though the Blue Mountains were almost impassable this year; it was quite harrowing both in the coming and the going).

Seriously though, I learned a lot of Western landmarks from that game.