This Past Week : Wyoming
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| This is Devil's Gate, as seen from entrance to Martin's Cove visitor's center. (Poor photo--taken with my iPhone. Sometime soon I'm getting a camera!) |
Last week the youth of our stake went to Martin's Cove, Wyo, to participate in the pioneer trek.
I didn't get to go on trek, but I had some great experiences that revolved around trek.
My role in trek was simple: I just has to drive to Wyoming and pick Caleb up (early) and bring him home for his last Border League baseball tournament. The entire idea of doing that was something I fought against for almost a year. Last summer, I talked with those in charge of the tournament to see if they could avoid scheduling it during trek, which was typical. Many times I talked with and encouraged and pleaded with Caleb to miss his baseball tournament. I tried everything I really could do to encourage him to attend the entire trek. Eventually, I resigned myself to the fact that the only way he would do trek would be if he could also participate in his tournament. And then I resigned myself to a twelve-hour round trip drive to get him.
[side note] I also wanted the girls to go on trek, but Taylor went as a twelve year-old, and Kenna never wanted to go. (She was signed up to go, at our insistence, but when she saw that I was picking Caleb up early she begged and begged and begged to be picked up early, too. But the only way to do that was to get special permission from the stake presidency. So we decided not to make McKenna go and told her she needed to go to all of girls' camp instead.) And Taylor was obligated to go to national FBLA in Nashville. So the girls didn't get there this year.
But Caleb did. And he had an amazing time. In fact, he had such an amazing time that he wanted to stay. When I asked him about it before leaving Friday morning, he hesitated for a long moment and then said, "I can't. My team is counting on me. " But I could see that he wanted to. So we left, arriving home around 2:35 pm. Caleb showered and left for his first tournament game at 3:15. His team won easily, and the following night, in the championship game against our long-time rival SedgeCo, Caleb pitched in his final Border League game. He pitched a perfect game. But that's a story for another post.
I planned time in my trip to go to the Martin's Cove visitor's center, which I have always wanted to do. I took Donna Veca, my friend and visit-teachee, to motivate me to be sure to take time to go. (My plan was to leave Thursday and drive to the visitors center, then drive back to Rawlins to stay the night, then wake up around 5 on Friday and go back to Martin's Cove to get Caleb. A lot of driving. And I thought that I might need someone else who wanted to go to the visitor's center to motivate me to drive the extra distance rather than just stopping in Rawlins.)
Donna and I left here around 10:30 a.m. Thursday--later than I wanted, but Kenna was still sick (she actually was sick the entire week of trek) and Taylor was packing to leave for Nashville Friday afternoon. Taylor was also checking in with people at the hospital, where she will be starting a new job when she returns from Nashville. Corbin was having a heck of a day, and Taylor was my babysitter, so I stayed around to diffuse some of the issues that were going on.
Anyway, we left, and we had a great drive to Rawlins: Uneventful (no car problems-yay!), pretty (in places), and we had a good conversation. We arrived at Martin's Cove a little later than I'd hoped (5:30) and we were tired but we had a really nice experience there. Here's what I wrote about the visitor's center later that night:
It’s a beautiful little oasis nestled on the Sweetwater “River”. (On the east coast, that wouldn’t even be a creek. We’d call it a little stream.) Driving north on hwy 287, you don’t see a lot from the road. If you know about them, you certainly notice Independence Rock* and Devil’s Gate, and there are signs for the visitor’s center, but until you stop and get out and really see what’s there, it doesn’t look like much. It probably wouldn't attract someone who didn't care or wasn't already headed there--it just doesn't have the Six Flags look!
But it’s a heck of a lot better than an amusement park.
Really, the church is nothing like an amusement park, and
this part of our church history is not at all amusing. It’s sobering. It’s awesome and it’s a
little awful. And it’s so very
inspiring. I was a little surprised that our guide, Elder Payne, was also emotional at a few points during the tour. I guess I assumed that talking about something hundreds or thousands of times would make one immune to emotions. I guess I was wrong. (In hindsight, I realized that that's a pretty stupid assumption.)
It's so interesting to me to think of all of the things that caused the handcart tragedy--from the Crimean War in Europe to poor communication to everything else--and to realize that all of those events were basically foreordained to happen when and as they did. It amazes me. The events of the rescue are also amazing (Willard Richards happens upon the pioneers, gets to Salt Lake, the rescue wagons leave, rescuers encounter a blizzard but are prompted to hang a sign along the trail while camping during the blizzard, starving pioneer finds them in a blizzard, saints are rescued. Wow.)
We didn't take time to walk through all of the outbuildings that the church acquired when we bought Tom Sun's ranch, but next time I'd like to. We also didn't pull a handcart. Dang! I completely forgot to ask. Maybe they assumed we weren't interested, but I was. Oh, well. Guess that means I'm going back sometime.
In fact, Caleb had so much fun, he said he'd go with me. So here's to Trek in 6 years. Hopefully it'll be me and my boys.
named because travelers on the Oregon/California trial route wanted to be this far by Independence Day.
Caleb, with his souvenir pillow.
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