Trek at Martin's Cove

I went along with Monkey and Bucket for our stake's pioneer trek.

Technically I was there to watch over Bucket, but since I never went on trek as a youth (I think they came into vogue after I was in college), I was also kind of going for myself.  That little fact may make me certifiable in some people's books... but oh well, it's the truth.  I've always thought it would be fun (yes FUN) to dress up like a pioneer and pull/push handcarts.  (I actually always wanted to do those big, week long ones they used to do, this one seemed kind of easy in comparison.)

The dressing up, in my mind, was great!  (It was a little stressful to get all the costumes made, but totally worth it.)  I even wore petticoats and bloomers in the heat of Wyoming summer (actually, I think the layers help you stay cool).  My skirt and apron were made from fabric my grandmother gave me years ago.  My bonnet belonged to my other grandmother.  And I wore my great grandmother's brooch.

Trek was at Martin's Cove (middle of nowhere, Wyoming).

We pushed/pulled handcarts and walked 3 miles the first day, 7 miles the second and 3 miles the last day.

The second day we crossed the river (well, the group did... my kids and I paid a tole and crossed the bridge.  One of the "perks" of being injured for Monkey, and being unable to swim for Bucket)

and walked into Martin's Cove

Our water was pumped from a well.  Bucket really enjoyed that part.

The food was dutch oven fare and very yummy... with plenty to eat, even for this bottomless pit.

Monkey had an interesting time of it... having been just put into a boot the week before, but she got her own personal rickshaw and only crutched around at camp.

It was hot, windy, dusty (my shoes are still shedding sand) and really helped me visualize in a small way what my ancestors went through to gather with the Saints in Utah.  None of my ancestors traveled with the Willie or Martin handcart companies, though many came in covered wagons in 1847 and 1848.  They traveled past the same landmarks I was walking past while on trek.  They cooked their food over buffalo chip fires, walked 13+ miles every day, while caring for their young families and "were happy" to be "going to a place of safety where we would not be mobbed and driven as we had been" (-Mary Stevenson, my great great great grandmother).

I left trek with a more certain knowledge that I am known and watched over in all that I am trying to do and that I receive divine aid daily.

Here are the words of my great great great grandfather, who came across the plains in 1848, given three months before he passed away:

"...I have had many privations and been in many trying scenes traveling on the plains and on the desert, and I know that those men who have stood at the head of His Church are men of God, and also the men who now stand at the head, and they will bear off this work triumphantly, and let me say to my children and to my children's children, if they will do right and keep the commandments of God, no good thing shall be withheld from them, and they shall have a testimony that God set up this work and it will roll forth and those who help it will stand, and those who fight against it will fall and crumble with the wicked.  I want to bear this testimony and leave it for the benefit of my children and my children's children, for I realize I have but a short time to live upon this earth.  I have passed my seventy-seventh year and it has been a pleasure to me to be associated during that time with the prophet and apostles and those whom I know were men holding the holy Melchizedek Priesthood.  I bear this testimony an wish it written that my children and my children's children my know hat I have finished my work and bear this testimony before them and all the world, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, even so, Amen."  (-Ezra T Clark, July 24, 1901)