Trek day 1

Well we made it back from the trek in one piece. It was a wonderful experiance and Matt and I definately have more respect for the pioneers and we understand a little of what they felt like as they went across the plains day after day. We had seven children in our family, 3 girls and 4 boys. All of them were very excited to be on the trek. We started out on Wednesday. We had to be at the stake center at 5:00 a.m. We had to get there that early because we had a 4 to 5 hour bus ride ahead of us. Once we arrived at the Martin's Cove visiting center we had to eat our lunch quickly and then go get our handcarts and start filling them. We had a little meeting after that where we found out who was in our family. Then we put our families stuff in the cart and started out. Now while we had been in our little meeting it had been raining. So we started out on our trek with rain, not a lot but some. We walked for about 2 miles and most of the two miles it sunny with no rain. Then as we continued it started raining again a little. Then it was more steady. To say the least by the time we finished the last 4 miles we were going on Wednesday everyone was cold and wet.

When we arrived at our camp ground it had stopped raining and we discovered that most of the camp ground was really, really muddy and wet. So about half of us ended up putting our tents on the gravel parking lot area, so that our tents would stay dry and not get stuck in the mud. We were very blessed that night that we didn't have to cook for ourselves. The cooking staff made spegetti and bread. it was great. It's really interesting how it doesn't matter how cold your food gets, it's still good when you are really hungry. I say this because by the time we got our food and sat down it was already really cold because of the wind. However it was great to have food in my stomache. That night we had a square dance. It was really fun. Matt even danced and he does not like to dance, so I was really excited about that miracle!! Then once that was over we gathered our family up and talked a little about the day and had a spiritual thought and pray. Then it was time for bed. And let me tell you we were all ready to go to sleep.

One of our girls woke me up in the middle of the night because she had to go to the bathroom and didn't have a flashlight. So I grabbed our lantern and went with her. She kept hearing the coyotes, so she didn't want to go by herself, plus it isn't safe to walk around at night like that by yourself anyway. The funny thing about this was I had taken my contacts out and so I just put on my glasses, for some reason I couldn't see very well and she only had on contact in, so we kinda stumbled through the dark and found the bathroom and returned safely to our tents. Well I'll have to continure with day 2 of the trek later. Chau for now.

Taking a bathroom break.

Matt had a Green bandana on his head all day, so his head turned green.

During the square dance. (Jen's in the red sweatshirt with a black coat and blue skirt and Matt has a black coat on with white stripes) We're on the right side of the picure.