Trek!

As I said in my last post, I've been very stressed about TREK!!!  This is a very strange Mormon thing where we dress up like pioneers and push handcarts around and try to reenact what our pioneer ancestors did when they crossed the plains to Utah.  It's super weird, but it's also really great for the youth, so when they asked Craig and I to help out, we had to say yes.  I loved my own trek experience when I had just graduated high school (although in all honesty, I only remember the best parts now), and Craig had never gotten to participate.  So it felt like a lot of unknowns coming at us...  Plus, we were trying to get everything ready and packed AND the weekend beforehand, Craig took Bentley and Kendra to Houston for our niece's wedding (I was so sad to miss it!).  (And that event will get its own blog post, but I need to bug Craig to write it!)  So, yes, lots happening!

The Tuesday prior, we were at the church helping the boys sew their shirts up for it, and treating everyone's clothes with permethrin (which worked GREAT-- no mosquito bites, no pulling ticks off me!).  

Craig got in character by wearing his hat and suspenders!

Wednesday was spent packing and cleaning the house and getting everything in order for Tom and Donna who arrived that night.  And then we left at 5am the next morning to drive to Hume, VA, where there is a Marriott Ranch that the church gets to use for weird endeavors such as this!

We dropped off all our gear and the kids we had brought (Bentley and Kendra, and two other kids from the ward, Olivia and Sawyer), and then parked our van at the endpoint and got shuttled back to where all the handcarts were waiting for us.

Yes, we look like Little House on the Prairie

The disassembled handcarts

I ran out and bought these sunglasses the day before.  They aren't very pioneer-esque, but they were super lightweight and comfortable to wear all day!  Each family got a colored bandana to differentiate ourselves by, so Craig picked red right off the bat.  (I would have chosen purple, but oh, well.)

Bentley and Topher are polishing the axles, I think?  I don't really know...

We had 16 youth from our ward!!!  WAY more than I would have guessed!

They had everyone get together and went over basic rules and all the Mas and Pas had to perform a skit introducing themselves.  This had probably been my biggest focus, since it's something I actually knew how to handle (as opposed to, say, buying tin pie plates which Craig informed me I was doing all wrong...).  Our skit involved me declaring that my superpower was singing Taylor Swift songs and then bursting into various songs in response to Craig's doubts about our ability to handle trek.  All the girls in the group who love Taylor Swift enjoyed it!  My own children were cringing so hard; they're undoubtedly scarred for life! 

Then they assigned all the kids to a Ma and Pa and asked us to give our "family" a name and make a flag.  We were slightly concerned to learn that one of our kids was on crutches (!!!), but I think his condition inspired us to name ourselves The Tourniquets, which I thought was pretty funny.  We had a quick lunch (bread, half an apple, 2 cheese sticks) and loaded up our carts.  That was a mess.  Everything kept slumping over on to the wheels.  One of the leaders assured us that by Saturday we would be super good at loading our carts!

It seems like a lot of stuff until you realize that this isn't even including food or most of the stuff we'd need for cooking!

And then we were off!  With all the kids pulling or pushing, they made it seem easy.  As a Ma and Pa we weren't supposed to be helping at all, it was supposed to be all the youth doing it.  Sold!

There was a lot of starting and stopping as we'd go through cattle gates and had to make sure no cattle could escape.  We'd probably only gone about a mile or so when Craig noticed that our wheel was about to fall off!  We stopped and called for one of the quarter masters to come take a look-- he had to take the whole thing apart and replace the ball bearings?  I think?  But he got it fixed pretty quickly, all things considered.  But a bunch of the handcarts had to go around us while we waited.  People expressed sympathy, but I was just thrilled that this was a problem someone else could solve for me!

Something doesn't look right here!

It was bumpier and had more hills in the woods, but the shade was nice!

I like how you can see this long line of us here!

We had a couple scheduled stops, where the kids could rest and have snacks and there were porta-potties.  Our kid on crutches-- named *Teancum, but called Tac for short-- rode in cars and met up with us at each of these stops.  He tried to act like he was getting a sweet deal, but that just made everyone hate him.  And you could see that he was actually super bored, because he'd get everywhere in about five minutes and then have to sit around for hours waiting on everyone else.  It made for an interesting dynamic.  

Here are a bunch of "our" kids-- clockwise from the top left, we have Daniel, *Amulek, Eaghan, Lance, Martha (our big sister), Jacob (big brother), Emma, and in the center, Aurie.  

Another of our kids, Lewis (on the right) with his twin brother, Daniel (who was in Bentley's family!)

And there's Emily

I loved the pink lighting here

And I was very proud of this shot of Eaghan getting some rest!  (He's a West Virginia boy and proved it over and over by being our best at building fires and just knowing general outdoorsy stuff!  Never mind that his dad is a dentist!)

Kendra hanging out with Jayden and Olivia from our ward

While Bentley chills with Topher and Aaron

These flowers were so spiky and weird

We reached camp that first night and set up our tarps.  Craig and I slept under the handcart, with the girls under tarps next to me and the boys next to Craig.  Unfortunately, we didn't notice until it was too late that we'd set up the handcart leaning the wrong way, so our heads were under the lowest part if we wanted our feet slightly downhill.  It was NOT a good night's rest for me.  But I don't usually sleep much when we camp, so this was not shocking.  I did enjoy all the fireflies out in the woods, and listening to an owl softly hooting.  Later in the night there were some downright weird noises (foxes mating?  other kinds of owls?  I have no idea!!!), but that first owl was nice.

The next morning Tac strolled out of his tent and decided his ankle didn't hurt any more and he was okay to walk with us today.  You can view that as a physical healing or (more likely) an emotional one, but either way, it was nice to have him join the group!  His ankle was fine for the rest of the time.  We made oatmeal which was delicious-- yay for butter, sugar, and dried fruit!

There's Tac before his miraculous healing!

Perfect fire for oatmeal!

That's me standing by our "camp" the next morning.  It was nice to put on a clean dress, although it didn't stay clean for long...  Also, after wearing tennis shoes all day, my crocs were such a nice change!

We were all packed up ready for a devotional when a storm began to blow in.  Everyone rushed to grab their ponchos and cover their stuff with the tarps and we decided just to move on out.

We did pause for a minute to admire the view

All poncho'd up and ready for weather!

Our whole group!

And then it proceeded to rain!  For the next two hours!  Which sounds absolutely awful, but it really wasn't...  It wasn't hot, which was nice, and we were mostly in the woods, so we really didn't even get all that wet until the very end.  And then the sun came out and it was fine!  Honestly, if you would have told me ahead of time that this was going to happen, I would have been filled with dread, but it just wasn't that big of a deal.  So that was sort of a relief.  I can survive rain!  😂

Right near the end of the rain was the women's pull.  This took forever to get all set up, but it wasn't too tough once we were going.  (And by "we" I mean, "the girls."  Once again, the adults were not helping.  This was all on the girls to get it done!). The girls all worked out a system to help each other, so each girl had to pull a handcart up the hill twice.  It was tough, but not impossible, and they did great!

Kendra smiling after cresting the hill

After that, it wasn't too much further until we made camp.  This time we had the whole afternoon to play pioneer games and do other various activities-- sawing wood and learning a couple basic dances.  It was fun for the kids and I got to sit in the shade and hang out with some of the other adults, so that was great.  What was not so great was that the bathrooms here were on the other side of a creek, and I was NOT happy to have to wade through water every time I needed the facilities.  This was not going to be fun in the middle of the night.  Who planned this???

Crossing the creek to camp!

Kendra has fun collecting everyone else's hats

Getting all ready for tug of war...

Bentley is very intent on his wood sawing here

All the big brothers and sisters cooking for their families.  They made spaghetti and it was SO GOOD.  Amazing what a little hard work will do for your appetite!

After all the games, we had dinner and then a very short dance.  The kids wanted to dance a lot longer, but it was threatening rain (which didn't happen) and I think the grown ups were worried about their instruments.  Pres. Schill, our stake 1st counselor, had learned to play the bass just for this!  

This night we'd gotten our handcarts and tarps set up much better and I was even MORE exhausted, so I actually slept pretty well, for camping!  I was a little horrified to wake up and find a slug way too close to my pillow, but oh, well...

Craig took this hilarious picture: this was our view as we tried to sleep 😂

We had a devotional all together, and then we got to pass out letters to our kids from their actual parents, which they were pretty excited to receive.  Then they had personal time to read scriptures, write in their journals, meditate, whatever they wanted to do...

This was how half our kids chose to "meditate" 😂

And then it was breakfast time-- pancakes and sausage!

And then time to-- you guessed it-- load up the cart again!  We had one final mile to go, which included crossing back over that creek, taking pictures, a very quick spiritual thought by Pres. Schill, and then one last hill before we rolled back into the parking lot of the Marriott Ranch to the cheers of all the parents.  It was a great way to end, and everyone was so happy.

I love a good 3 minute spiritual thought.  Perfection.

Again, I like the long line of everyone snaking up the hill!

(This is out of order, but here's me with my buddy Megan before everything started!)

Huffs and Smiths for the win!

Our final group shots!

Craig and my family

Kendra's family

And Bentley's family

Trek turned out to be a really great experience.  I can't even really explain it, but I was just so happy the entire time!  The weather was about as good as I could hope for, the food was (mostly) great.  I'm so glad we got to go.  And that's a doubly good thing, because I suspect it won't be the last time we have to do this...!

*Seriously, I'm about as Mormon as you can get, but what's up with people giving their kids ridiculous Book of Mormon names???  This just seems like the meanest thing you could possibly do to your kid...