Each year, the missionaries have all of the cowboys who work on the ranch, and their families, come for a barbecue. They are all LDS Church employees and some of them live at DL&L Ranch headquarters on the ranch near Woodruff, UT.
We fed them in Christie's Pavilion and had a great time getting to know them and their families.
One of the treks last year gave Elder Cowen some wood targets and four throwing hatchets. It was a big hit with all of them.
We also had some other games and things for them to do: stilts, bean toss game, walking boards, bubble nets, and a buffalo shoot (also left by a trek group.) Everyone had a good time.
Another porta john Tuesday! This one happened to be on Elder and Sister Brinkerhoff's 50th wedding anniversary. What a way to celebrate, with me, Sister Call, Ekins, Barton (Sister Brinkerhoff), Cowen, Peart, Walker, and Hutchings!
Our trek this week was on Trail 14, with Elder and Sister Hutchings. We led the Sandy Utah Central Stake. There were around 170 people and they pulled 12 handcarts. They were a great group, with the LeCheminants as the trail bosses. They carried everything in their carts: buckets, water jugs, tarp/tents, and cooking supplies.
It didn't take them long to figure out how to make some shade as they ate their lunches before heading out on the trail.
As the trekkers look ahead on their trail and see how far they have to walk, it is pretty daunting to them. But it is amazing how soon they reach their destination. The average trekkers walk about 2 miles an hour. We stop for water about every half hour and have porta john stops about every 3-5 miles.
There are sometimes some pretty steep hills we go down where we have them put the rope on the back of the cart to slow down the cart, with two on each side in front to guide it, and no one in the "kill zone" in front. Then, we send them down the hill one cart at a time to make sure if a cart gets loose, the one in front doesn't get run over!
These "families" were pretty inventive at how they set up their tarps for sleeping under.
They looked pretty cozy as they got their sleeping bags all in a row, with the Ma and Pa in the middle, and the girls on one side and the boys on the other, all hoping the snoring wasn't too loud!
These families did all of their own cooking. Each meal, we were assigned to eat with a different family. It was really fun doing that, but I felt sorry for the Ma and Pa who had to cook their meals every night in a dutch oven, after trekking all day!
They had really good group devotionals every evening.
Their buckets make good seats for mealtimes and all of the group gatherings, besides holding all of their personal belongings.
One afternoon they had pioneer games. This one was really interesting. They had about six 2x4 boards about 3 feet long. They had to use them to move a teammate across a certain distance and be the first to get there, without falling, to win.
They also played baseball.
One of their most favorite games was the stick pull. The Prophet Joseph Smith was said to be a real champion at playing this game.
Even the girls competed--and even beat some of the boys!
After their games and dinner that evening, they had a hoedown. I called my first time ever, for one dance, the Virginia Reel, and Sister Hutchings call the Heel/Toe Polka. They all had a great time!
Because there hasn't been any rain the last several weeks, the roads are beginning to get very dusty as the handcarts travel along!
The handcart in the lead always had an American flag in it, along with their family flag. It was really nice, partly because if you were riding in the the Ranger in the back, it was easy to tell the lead group.
This was a great group. The leaders, the support, and the youth were awesome. The medical people did such a good job. They even had a podiatrist on staff--great idea for a trek! He always had a line waiting for him at the end of each day, with lots of blisters and sore feet! At the end of the trek, they had a great barbecue at staging, before they got in their busses and left for home.
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