For Some must Push and Some Must Pull...

Trent wanted us to take a picture of how it would have been back then. It took so long for the camera that nobody would smile...

monument of the men who helped others across the river
Martins Cove

Sweetwater River

I had such a good time, I didn't want to come back to reality. We went to Martin's Cove up in Wyoming to visit Trent's parents. I have been on two treks when I was a teenager. However, it was really neat to see the place where so much grief, pain, and strength the pioneers had to endure. On Friday when we got there we hiked up Devil's Gate. We missed Gina, Steph, and Vicki's family. Then on Sat we got in our pioneer clothes and went for the hike with the handcarts. We had to tie Faith's car seat in the handcart and she actually did great!! We hiked up to the handcart parking lot, my kidneys were hurting by then and I didn't want to over do it, so trent pulled me in this little seat looking thing up the cove. Funny but those where harder to pull than the handcart themselves. I kept getting out because I felt bad that Trent had to pull me. It made me wonder how when someone was sick or hurt how guilty they must have felt to make their loved one pull them in the snow. We went to the cove, which for some reason I was thinking would be more like a cave but it wasn't. At that cove, to get out of the wind, the pioneers that left England to come to Zion where in life and death situations. They told us 50 something people died in the cove. They would put the dead bodies on the other side of the cove, and because the ground was so hard they tried to bury them in the snow. However, by the time they started walking back they could hear the wolves devouring their loved ones. One story I really thought was interesting was a lady whose fiancee died and she couldn't bare allowing the wolves to eat him, so they tied him in a tree and hoped by spring that his body would still be there so they could bury him. Going to the Cove at this time of year we really don't understand the hardships of a severe winter storm. We also did a women's pull when the men got pulled off to the "Mormon Battalion" it was good. I really have always thought that everyone should go on a real trek if they ever have the chance. It was different going as a teen than it was now. I will always have good, spiritual, physical, and emotional memories as a teen. I think every Teen needs to go on one. The one I went on was the needlepoint mountains where Brigham Young got really sick on his first time out to the west. It was interesting to take my kids this time, and think of me as being a single mother with her three children and having to try to cross. Many of the men died from giving up their rations to their children, and loosing their strength. I honestly don't know how they pulled through. There were angels on earth sent to help them and help them cross the freezing river. I really enjoyed going and hope that in the future I will have another chance to do it again. On Sunday after church (which I actually loved Sunday school because they taught out of the Heritage Manual. I love history and pioneer stories, it has gotten me so ready to go visit Nauvoo) we stopped to visit the visitors center, and we went to Independence Rock and that was really neat to see all the signatures as well. After driving 6 hours back home yesterday, I had fever blisters pop all on my upper lip. I look like I just had some botox done!