The Trek – by Dade
So um…we got dressed for the trek. The temple went good and um we did that (got dressed) at the church next to the temple and then the Comers drove me there and um then it was basically you had to go find this lady and she’d tell you what family you were in and you’d have to go find your cart and my family had this weird knack for always being the first ones to our destination so we left really early and um before a lot of other carts left and um there was still like 10 or 15 carts in front of us. And we were passing them we passed just about all of them and we got there in about an hour to our first camp site. Not hard to push carts with all of us. Because there was so
many pushing at once it was nothing. Um, we got there we put up our tents and them we all got to go off and talk to our friends. A lot of them were up to an hour late because one group the water broke on their cart and it was pouring all over it and they had to stop and fix it and some others just got hung up. So I just talked to my friends and then on Sunday we went to all the meetings and I talked to my friends. We had Sacrament. Mtg and Sunday school and we had this other meeting and then we had a fire side. I didn’t get a chance to help with the sacrament. And then we went to bed. Girls were lucky because people with them didn’t care if they stayed awake, once we were in bed you had to be quite. One night I woke up in the middle of the night and the girls light was still on and they were still talking and then Monday we woke up really early took down our tarps got some breakfast and then we left for our longest journey so far and um we got to go over a big raft barge thing that to get over the lake. We had to pull on some rope. But we didn’t have enough pioneer money to pay our way across because something happened to ours. We couldn't find it. We gave them 5 bucks that the cart in front of us gave us and then we paid the rest in slave labor. Our cart and the cart in front of us put our pods on their raft and we pulled the rope for them so the actual employees wouldn’t have to do anything. And then it was the hardest part of the whole day where you had to push your cart where there was rocks out of no where and you’d hit them very, very hard. So we had to have Paws from the cart in front of us help us. And then all the boys had to go leave to help with the Mormon battalion and so we just had to walk around a short cut path where the women had to go up this huge, huge hill by themselves and then send it down the other side. The girls did really good they got up and down the hill without dropping anything. And then um we went through the woods again and went to our lunch site and then after we had lunch we went back into the woods with our carts and finally we were at our next camp which was a huge field with woods around it. Tuesday we got up and took our tents down and we had to pull up to the lunch area and then we had to get some tags that they put on some people. Some of them said sick and some of them said dead. Um if it said sick they could only push 20 minutes every hour. And if a person was dead, they couldn’t do anything at all but walk behind the cart and not talk. So then he announced there would be no breakfast because we were infested with the plague. Um then we pulled our carts into a huge field and this guy talked about how he had gotten food and he had gotten quails so we went and picked up our lunch bucket that they had filled and we went and picked our breakfast which was in a big box and it had a lot of sausage biscuits, juice boxes and go-gurt and they were very good. Then we went off and basically went the long way back to our old campsite where a bunch of kids got stung by yellow jackets, I saw one get stung. They were just walking by and she pulled up her pants leg to scratch and she got stung. We had to put her in our cart to push her and then a whole handcart group got stung because one kid stepped in one of those holes with yellow jackets in the ground and the whole group got stung. They had to rope it off and Bro. Despain was whacking them with his gloves. And then we went across to the other side where our camp site and that’s where we were this morning. And then we went swimming and I went canoing and I almost tipped someone’s canoe which was fun. And that’s basically it. Oh and we had fast and testimony meeting this morning and last night. Actually it started last night and it went all the way to this morning it was 3 ½ hours long. I bore my testimony. I just talked about how my family in the hand cart was awesome. (I was also told he yodeled on the trip.) Because we had no money we raised money by our mom (Megan Martin) eating crickets. She even ate one in a sandwich. We made 50 lbs of flour. Bro martin ate a cricket 4 -5 inches long wings and jumpy legs and all.
So, we drove 2 hrs down to Camp Reeves to welcome Dade and the other Pioneers into the "Salt Lake Valley" (which was really a big field filled with prickers, ticks (I took one home as a pet), and poison ivy.) The handcarts pulled in about 10:30 am and we were on the sidelines with other families waving white handkerchiefs and singing Come, Come, Ye Saints! It was really a very special moments. Tears where shed. The kids were hot, dirty, sweaty, but all smiling and laughing. We made Dade and his friend, Andrew, some lunch and then drove them home to sleep and shower. Thursday we found out
Ryan had off work for 4th of July (a VERY rare thing) so we made plans to head to the beach on Friday. Ryan and his brother Eric made plans to meet a friend there to deep sea fish and so Heather (Eric's wonderful wife) and I got to 
make plans to keep our 7 beautiful children busy at the beach all day. About 10 pm Thursday night, Ryan's friend called and said they needed to head out about 6:15 in the morning. That meant we needed to leave for the beach about 3 am. Let's just say none of us got much sleep. We headed out early and got to the beach about 6am. Ryan's friend, Andy offered to let Heather and I and the children use his hotel room if we needed to. What a blessing!! We headed inside and let the kids sleep a bit before heading out to the beach about 8am. We were at Ft. Macon and the beach was beautiful. The ocean is so shallow there that the 
kids could go out pretty far and it still was only waist deep. The sand was full of shells and crabs and it wasn't too hot. Ella and Sylvie took right to the water and loved to run/crawl down 
to the surf and play in the waves. They had no fear. Several times I'd turn for a second to put something away and Sylvie would be back on her way to the ocean. I took lots of pictures 
but my camera was on the wrong setting (the white balance was off) and I couldn't tell due to my sunglasses and the sun's glare so ALL of my beautiful pictures came back BLUE!! 
I've photoshopped a few back to a more recognizable color but don't have time to do them all so you'll have have to view our beach trip and see my children as cute little Smurfs. After the beach we headed back to the hotel and let the kids sleep and clean up. There were several sunburns due to so much time in the water but all survived. We later headed out to swim in the hotel pool and wait for the guys to get in. Outside by the dock we saw a clam bed, fish, tadpoles, ducks and baby ducks, birds, and lots of crabs. Ella said several words including "sky", duck, Where'd he go? 
(talking about Ryan), and fish. She's really starting to say some words and it's pretty exciting. The men came in about 6pm fishless but with stories (and pictures) of the one that got away. We headed home but stopped for dinner at a seafood restaurant on the way. We pulled in about 11:30 pm exhausted but glad we had such a fun day. Saturday we slept....when we finally dragged out of bed we just hung out at home. Saturday night the kids all went over to Mark & Jamie's to potentially see fireworks with Aunt Rachel and everyone. Ryan and I headed to Chapel Hill for our first REAL date in years? We went to dinner at Top of the Hill and then headed to a show at the planetarium. We stopped for ice cream (in the rain) and were enjoying our chat on the way home so much that we missed our exit and had to take the long way home. Thanks everyone for your help with the kids!! The fireworks were rained out but the kids didn't complain. They really enjoy spending time with family. Sunday was church and another day of rest. Friday really took a lot out of us but I think we have finally recovered! Yeah!
1 comment:
It's so awesome to have the first hand-account of the trek from Dade. Thanks to Christy and Dade for getting all that written down. It's really interesting!
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