I just had the experience of a lifetime participating in our stake Trek this past week. I need to write it all down now while it's fresh in my mind (and if I ever get my hands on some photos, I'll post those...it killed me not to be able to take pics myself throughout the Trek! And it's killing me now not to have anything to "illustrate" my tale with.)
So to start from the beginning... When we first found out about the location of Trek (last fall, was it? It was at Stake Conference, I know that), George and I just looked at each other and were SO excited. We had visited Martin's Cove 5 years ago on our way back from the family reunion in Kansas City and at the time the missionaries there told us all about all the groups who came to do treks there. We felt sad that we lived so far away that we'd never get to do it ourselves...but here now our youth (our son Anthony in particular) were going and we were absolutely thrilled for them (but a tiny bit sad that we weren't involved and able to take part ourselves).
Well...fast forward to this past June... I was at a lunch with a friend of mine who was going on the Trek as a Ma and she mentioned that the leadership was on the hunt for another Ma & Pa. I told her that George was really wanting to go (because truthfully, as excited as I was to do the Trek itself, the responsibility of playing "Ma" was hugely daunting...so it really was just George who wanted to do it). It was only a week or two later that we got a call from the Stake leadership saying they wanted to meet with George & me...and they extended the call to be a Ma & Pa! I had a lot of feelings about it...but like I said it was mostly a mix of enormous excitement with heavy worries about being inadequate for the Ma role. I remember the kinds of leaders I had as a youth that I loved and felt inspired by...and I'm not that person...at least I don't feel like I'm that person...and I feel like I don't connect well with teens, or at least I have the least experience with that age group. (I feel most at ease around the toddler to early elementary ages.) I spent a lot of time praying about that.
Thankfully we had received the call prior to our trip to Utah in June, so we took full advantage of that trip to stock up on our pioneer clothes and other gear for the Trek. We rushed to get all our doctor physicals done in time and all of that other necessary paperwork...and before we knew it, the day had arrived for our Trek departure on Friday, July 31st! George's dad was so very kind and generous to come stay with the other 4 boys all week while the 3 of us were away.
I kinda laugh about what happened when we first arrived at the church that afternoon--we got there the same time as Wendy Bennion so she & I walked in together through the "girls" door (the boys went in another side to maintain order and for the daypack "sweep".) As we walked in, the other Ma's that were there directed us into the room to have our own bags checked until they realized we were Ma's too (haha, they thought we were youth! I still can't believe people always think I'm that young...I'll be 40 in a year & a half, yikes.)
We went in, chose seats on Bus 5 (there were chairs set up in the cultural hall for each of the 5 busses...everyone other than the previously assigned Bus bosses got to choose where they rode for the first part of the trip.) Then when the actual busses arrived, we boarded and loaded all the buckets packed with our gear on...and then we hit the road!
We loved our bus. It ended up being filled with mostly Priests & Laurels, who were fun without being crazy annoying and they all actually quieted down pretty quickly when it was time to sleep. Anthony was on another bus so at our first stop we found him and asked him about his ride--turns out Bus 2, which he & his friends were on, had a broken A/C so the poor kids & adults on that bus were sweltering!
That night that we were on the road happened to be the same night as the Blue Moon for July--if you know me and my love of the night sky, you know I was thoroughly enamored with that moon and admired the view out the window bathed in all that silvery full moon light. I didn't want to sleep because of that moon but I knew I'd be regretting it come morning so I did try to sleep. (It was SO hard to sleep on that bus! Especially since I had a snorer sitting behind me...glad he was sleeping well at least.) The bus drivers took long breaks through the night--I'm not entirely clear why but I guess one of the busses ended up way behind periodically and had to be waited for--so we were pretty late getting to our destination for breakfast in Brigham City.
There in Brigham City at a stake center, we all changed into our first set of pioneer clothes. I loved seeing all the different dresses--some girls/women had gorgeous period dresses! The boys all looked so great in their clothes...a lot of them had suspenders and straw hats. So cute. We were fed a wonderful pancake breakfast there before we all boarded the busses once more to continue on to Independence Rock in Wyoming.
Once there, everyone left the busses and we finally organized into our Trek families. Each of the kids was given a code and we held up a sign with the code for our family, which was R-8 (which meant Red, or Fisher Company, number 8). We had 8 kids--4 girls & 4 boys: Rachel, Cassie, Addie, Olivia, Adam, Haydn, Cole & Spencer. George wanted to hike up Independence Rock for our first family meeting so we hurriedly walked out there. I mistakenly thought it was easiest to climb the Rock from the right hand side, but as we walked out that direction it became more evident that it was not any easier & probably worse than the other side. We stopped in one area to start our meeting (& eat lunch)...it started off awkwardly as we tried to prompt the kids to introduce themselves and run through the rules. We felt terribly rushed since the busses had arrived so late & they had to cut our time short. George did go up on the Rock with 7 of the kids while I hung back with Cassie who had tried to climb but felt nervous about it. I didn't blame her--I'd attempted to climb and kept getting tangled up in my dress. There were cute little cottontail rabbits hopping all over the place around the Rock. They finally came back down and we walked over to the other side of the Rock where tons of people were climbing up easily, so George & the boys went up again before the call went out for everyone to return to the busses to head to Martin's Cove at long last. (We were assigned to Bus 4 for the rest of our trip as a family...and the bus driver on Bus 4 was mean! He yelled at us for the mess left on the bus during the previous ride.)
At Martin's Cove, we unloaded all the buckets and found all of ours....then we were given a handcart and placed all our buckets in and began the hike to our campsite, about 3 miles away. We were about 4 hours behind schedule (thanks to those slow busses!) so the sun was setting as we walked the trail. It was getting dark as we finally arrived at camp and had to find our site...we finally found it and then had to set up all our tents. As we worked to build the tents, the most gloriously beautiful moonrise happened in the eastern sky. It was huge and a blazing pink-red color, directly opposite the fading light of a similarly pink sunset in the western sky. Truly awe-inspiring and a beautiful sight I won't soon forget.
Each night as a family, we were supposed to do an evening family meeting and specifically take time for reflection and journal writing...but it was SO late after setting up camp and then eating dinner & cleaning up afterward (dinner was a delicious taco salad!) that our time was short and everyone was dead tired after our not-so-restful overnight bus ride so I felt like our meeting was very lacking. I read a favorite scripture aloud and tried to spur some conversation but it all fell rather flat. Somehow we managed to completely miss our Company Meeting with "Captain" Fisher that evening too. We turned in for the evening and I fell fast asleep as soon as I hit my pillow (which was really just my warm coat stuffed in its pack.) It was pretty warm out still but I slept easily & woke only briefly to pull my sleeping bag over me when it did cool off.
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