mom2four: The Pionner Trek= Nicholes story

I started the trek on a Monday. We all met at a house and met who was in our families. My Pa and Ma were The DeKay's. I had 4 brothers Brady, Brendon, Tate, and Coy. I also had 3 sisters Tara, Maren, Kenna. We packed up our wagon and took a family photo. Then they taught us some first aide and hung around for the other companies to get their stuff together. We learned our company song and started on our merry way.

We walked through this horrible mud. It was so deep and it was so weird to walk on because there was these weird puddles that made you have to walk in weird angles. There was some tough hills to go over. Eventually we came to the first river. We changed into our water shoes, crossed the river, then changed back into our hiking boots. We took off and were a mile ahead of everyone. So we stopped for a little while and resituated things. We attached ropes to the wagon so we could have more then 2 people pulling. There was this dog that kept on following us. It was funny because we would kick the sand and the dog would run to try to catch the sand but couldn't so it would look all over to see where the sand landed. We attached a rope to the dog. We would kick the sand, the dog would go chasing after it and help pull our wagon. We walked a lot. We walked a total of 12.3 miles. Which is like 5 Johnson miles (President Johnson would make 1 mile into 3 miles and would keep saying just one more mile, one more mile. Eventually we just changed the distance into Johnson Miles). When we got to our first campsite we gathered tons of wood and we had a huge pile. Then people with guns came out and said "Get out of here Mormons!" So we picked up our wagon and walked another 1 Johnson Mile. When we finally got to the other campsite we had to dig out a ton of rose bushes. Then we cooked food and set up our tent. After we ate we built extra railing around our wagon, had a devotional, and then went to bed.

Day 2- We woke up and cooked breakfast burritos. Then we cleaned our dishes. Then the boys took down their tent but the girls didn't because we were doing the dishes. At one point I was just standing there and I hear "Roll, roll, roll" I look over and see fire and then nothing fire and then nothing. This girl had caught on fire. Her family helped her get it out. Then Maren and I went into the tent and started to pick up our things. The wind caught our tent and when we left the tent the wind picked up our tent and the tent flew across the lot! We caught it and then took it down and packed it up. At that time we were still in our pjs so we had to tilt the wagon to the side. Put a tarp over it and change in that. Then it started raining so I got my rain gear on, packed up the wagon, and then had a devotional as a company ( a company consists of 5 families of 10 people each family). Then we headed out. After about a mile and a half we were stopped and the boys left for "war". The girls we forced to pull the wagon for a mile and a half. We had to cross one river the size of a puddle. At one point we passed the boys. They were lined up on either side of the trail staring at us as we passed through them. I didn't know that they could be so serious for so long. After we passed the boys we all stopped and they came running back and they pulled the wagon the rest of the way to the camp which wasn't very far at all. When we got there we set up the tent and started a fire. We chopped down 4 dead trees to burn. We didn't even bother to build a pit. Then after wards we had a bunch of games to play like horse shoes and jump rope. Then there was another devotional and we ate steak. That night we square danced. Afterwards I went to the Quimby family and hung out with them for a while and took some of the boys snipe hunting. We caught a frog. When we heard a moose we decided to go back to the family. Eventually I went back to my tent and went to bed.

Day3- The morning was the same. We ate, took down the tent, packed up the wagon, and had another devotional. We walked a couple miles and we got to a river and the boys had to carry the girls across. It didn't matter I got carried across most of the rivers anyways. We walked some more. Brady went blind (not really, it was just part of the trek) for about an hour. Then we went to our third site. We set up our tent and cooked fajitas for dinner. I shot a black powder gun. Then I washed my hair. I hung out with Kylee and Myranda a lot. We would laugh over the dumbest things because we were just so tired. Maddie came over with a lid of ice cream and we hung out with her and Dene a lot. At one point we started smashing ice cream into each others faces. At one point I smashed into Hunter Harr's face. Then he tried to take the ice cream from me. Kylee took it from me and ran. Hunter chased after her. Some guy out of the blue just tackled Hunter and Kylee was home free. We told Hunter that it was part of the awesome club so he took the ice cream and smashed it into one of his brothers face. Hunter took off running and the guy chased him, caught up to him, picked him up and threatened to throw him into the river. But the girls tried to save Hunter. There were just too many girls. The guy had to let Hunter go. That night half of my family went to jump into the river at 1 o'clock in the morning. I thought it was dumb so I just sat by the fire. They asked me to bring their towels out to them when they whistled for them. I was talking to Dene and she said that she was worried that the kids were going to go and jump into the river. I was trying to convince her that that wouldn't happen at the same moment I heard the whistle. I made an excuse and gave them the towels when Dene wasn't looking. They came over to the fire to get warm. We went to bed.

Day 4- started as all of the other days. We had mush for breakfast. Then we had testimony meeting while I ate my mush. Then we packed up and left. We had a person who was the pacer who was going to fast. We kept getting yelled at to stop then would get yelled at for stopping. We had this really hard hill to go up so we decided to pull instead of push the wagon up. We had 2 people on the back holding all the weight up. Pushing with all their might. When we got to the top we waited forever for everyone else to get up the hill. While we were waiting Derek showed us his dinosaur impression. It was hilarious. Then we jump roped with the rope we had attached to our wagon. Fail! We got back on the horrible muddy trail from the first day but it wasn't as bad as the first day. We made it back to the beginning. There were supposed to be parents waiting for us there but no one in our ward had their parents there so we all felt like losers until the all just started showing up at the same time. There was a BBQ for the families.

I learned that if your wheels deformed it's not easy to push. I am told by my mom that I should have a new appreciation for the pioneers. I guess I do.