Every 4 years our stake does a reenactment of Trek; the mormon pioneer’s trek across the United States. We of course do not go across the U.S. but we do go out to some remote place and have to push/pull a HEAVY handcart wearing pioneer clothes for three days, sleeping under the stars at night and cooking our own meals. They try to make the course rough enough for us to get the point but doable enough to feel successful. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate!
Don’t we look like pioneers??
We had a wonderful family of 10 children. 5 boys and 5 girls. Each one had their own personality and abilities to add to our family, but overall our family rocked trek! We were strong, we were together and we enjoyed each others company. I suppose all trek families say the same thing (at least Jaime does) but really, our family was tops.
At one of our pre-trek meetings we had the kids make handcarts out of Scott’s old constructs. They were quite creative. It was a good way to keep them engaged while we made some decisions.
After quite a few meetings to get to know each other and lots of logistical planning we were sitting in a parking lot with our loaded handcarts sweating like stuffed pigs waiting for our turn to go. As it turns out the weekend that was chosen for trek also happened to be the hottest weekend on record for the area. It got up to 115 degrees. Now that might sound like chump change to some of you, but for us 75 degrees with a cool breeze Bay Areans, it was a brutal nightmare! See, trek is suppose to start out easy and get hardest on the last day, not wipe everyone out in one fell swoop the first few hours. We had people dropping like flies. Ma’s and Pa’s were being told they might have to go home, kids were going home and countless kids were sick by the side of the road only to be rescued by water trucks that sprayed us to help us all cool off. I must say though, of all the families, we fared the best. We didn’t loose anyone to the heat. We were all pretty miserable and couldn’t wait to get to camp, but we didn’t loose a single kid.
Some of Jaime’s Family
The weekend pretty much continued like that but helped us gain a better appreciation for the little things in life. Like, ice. Yes folks, ice. After 2 days of luke warm water, ice was the best thing that anyone could have offered us. Dry clothes. After about 5 minutes in the morning you were drenched with sweat. How nice clean, DRY clothes felt after that. Cooked food. We cooked food, but usually were so hungry that we couldn’t wait for it to be done. Crunchy bean soup is something I hope never to eat again, but boy did we eat it that night. After such a long day, we would have eaten anything!
Scott made our banner. The shield glows!
I hope this does not sound pessimistic. I just want to paint a picture of the reality of what we encountered. The experience was actually quite fun and very uplifting and very eye opening. It created in me an absolute admiration for those who put their lives on the line and the lives of their families so that I could be a member of this church and have all the blessings that come with that membership. Blessings that can be had by all who join and partake of the goodness of the gospel. I feel incredibly indebted to all who have physically sacrificed for the good of generations to come. What a humbling experience this all was.
Stick pulling was super fun!
I am also grateful for the sacrifices made by our friends here. They took care of our other 5 kids so we could go. That was a huge blessing for us.
Some funny things:
After about an hour on the first day of trek one of our sons said “Ok, I’ve got my testimony now, can I go home?”
After they took all of our stuff and loaded it onto trucks and were half way back to Fremont (a 2 hour drive) I realized I left the van keys in my back pack….oops!!
Opening line for a testimony… “Fat Penguin…. I needed something to break the ice!!”
Two Lips on the prairie, FUN GAME!!
Best.Pa.EVER!!
Trail Blazers! We were the first ones out on the last day and we got to a part of the trail and had to stop, a tree had fallen down and made a HUGE mess in the middle of the trail that made it impassable. The trail bosses with us were radioing to the “in charge” people about what they thought we should do. While they were busy doing that, our little family sprang into action. Within 10 minutes we had the trail cleared and passable. We were sure one of us was going to get poison oak since the trail at that point was full of it and we were clearing that too (unintentionally), but not one person got it! We are still a little prideful over this one…
Best.Ma.EVER!!
Raw sausage wrapped in raw scone dough and deep fried. YUMMMY!
I’m sure there is more, but those are the ones that stand out in my memory. I’d do this again in a heartbeat!
Jaime loved it too.
Oh my. Sounds both horrific and awesome at the same time. You guys are awesome!!