unable to produce much or any plant life

stunningly loud

moving or forcing open; searching too curiously

looking over or viewing

coming or being before

The wagon ______________ forward, swaying and almost throwing me out the back.

____________ the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains below us.

Like many immigrant families, we traveled west over miles of dry, ______________ lands.

Everything we could take from our past, or ______________, life back in Boston was now in our covered wagon.