We Came, We Saw, We Made IT!!!! Trek 2009

Our first stop Independence Rock
This is "boot-strap"...the baby I mean

(Info: Boot-strap's real name is William Wignall and he was a 3 month old baby that crossed with his family in the Martin Company, but the girls nicknamed him "boot-strap because the poor baby was dressed in pink. He needed to feel like a man)

DISCLAIMER: From this point forward my hair goes from "bad" to "words cannot describe" so don't hate!!

Can you just see the excitment of pulling a handcart to camp

Pit Stop

This is right before we went into Martins Cove

Me and the girls

Our last family pic with our "cousins"

Note: my mom and dad should be in this picture because they were apart of this other family, but they booked it out of there as quick as they could. Party poopers.

Our last family pic

The kids having way too much fun on the bus ride home

We made it back from our Trek to Martin's Cove! The coyotes didn't eat me, the snakes didn't get in my tent and I even came home tick free. I think I came home tick free because I smelled to bad they didn't even want to try. I tried to put the pictures in the order that they happend. First day, got up and the un-holy hour of 3:30 in the morning. Loaded buses and drove a very long and boring six hours to Independence Rock. On the bus we were able to get to know the "kids" and "aunts" in our family. I have to say that I really enjoyed our family. The kids and the aunts were so much fun. Independence Rock was really neat. We didn't get to spend as much time there as we would have liked, but it was still neat to see. We were hoping to go explore a cave at the back of the big rock where there is still, supposedly, names carved in from those who came across the plains in the 1800's. I guess I'll just take their word for it. After the rock we headed over to Martin's Cove ,which is where we camped, and got our handcarts and headed to camp. One really neat thing; there is a dog (Great Pyrenese) there and when a group shows up for a Trek he comes and walks with you and protects your group from rattlesnakes and whatever else comes around. His name is Oscar and you can actually read about him in the July Friend. He's a pretty popular dog. The next day was the "Big Day" of Martin's Cove which was a really neat experiance. What a peaceful place, it was neat to finally see the place that I have been reading about for so long. An interesting note, Oscar didn't follow us up into Martin's Cove, he headed back out to the picnic area. He followed us everywhere else though. After the Cove we headed over to cross the Sweetwater another really neat experiance. Then dropped our handcarts off and walked back to camp. That day was a lot of walking and a lot of people came back to camp with blisters. The next day we broke camp and loaded the buses up. We then drove to Rock Creek Hollow, where the Willie Handcart people had such a hard time. That was probably my favorite day. We came and started to walk down into the hollow, and each family got a baby to carry with them through the whole trek, and at the hollow they take your baby away. Obviously representing the many people that died there and other places along the trail. That part wasn't easy but it really hit home. After we got down into the hollow we had a devotional and the last song was "Come Come Ye Saint's " which is a tear jerker, but add random people standing up and putting a white shawl on to represent the people that died, nobody made it through with a dry eye. I looked around at the end and I only had 5 out of my 10 famliy members left.

We had some really great experiances on the Trek and one of my other favorite parts was that I got to be in the same campground as my mom and dad. So our familys did about everthing together. It was awesome being able to do those things with my mom and dad. It's always great to go home though, especially after three days without a shower. And of course I missed Jaxon and Brynly so we were excited to make it home. I am really grateful to have had to opportunity to go on the Trek. It was something that I don't think I'll ever forget.