Martin's Cove

Back from 4 days at Martin's Cove with a 130 kids and 70 adults. It was a great time, both spiritually and physically. We left Monday at 6:30 after spending an hour loading the buses and made it for 90 minutes before having to stop for a bathroom stop. Then in another 90 minutes we had to stop at Togowotee pass for construction and a bunch of boys (and a few ladies) ran for the trees. One girl had an allergic reaction to mint breath spray.

I was navigating the second bus but the only instructions I got was follow the first bus. But we got so far behind the first bus that we were guessing where to go. So we turned to early for the park in Dubois, Wy for lunch and then missed the turn-off to Lander because I thought we were going to Riverton. After having been there, I think Riverton would be easier and only 10 minutes or so longer. Then we followed the first bus, but they didn't know the turn-off for the campground. So we turned off into the visitor's center, and then they told us take the next right, but it was the second right. And the people that lived on the first right weren't too happy. They came out and video taped us driving on the "private" road.

At lunch in Dubois, Wy., there was a group of bikers coming/going to Sturgis and they come up and asked if we where Mennonites or FLDS. When they found out we were going to Martin's Cove to push hand carts, they were very relieved. They thought that was kind of cool.

The second day we got the kids up early like 6am. And pushed the hand-carts 10 miles. We stopped for lunch at the meadow where the Willie company was rescued. You could see the ruts for the wagon/handcart trail. Being from Idaho, you could imagine what it looked like with 2 feet of snow and winds blowing down the valley. And guess who was there to meet us, Elder and Sister Seymour. They say "hello" to all you youngsters that know them. They were getting released yesterday and we were the last group they were speaking to. We had one young women get a log stuck between the cart wheels and the bank on the first river crossing and one leader fall and land on a sharp rock on the third river crossing. His hand required stitches that the doctor gave him before we moved on.

The third day we went to Martin's Cove and pushed the handcarts from the visitor's center to the handcart parking and walked through Martin's Cove. I think many of the kids where very touched. They were amazingly reverent.

I'll be putting pictures up on my web site, when we finally get them edited. We asked the kids not to bring cameras so it wouldn't be a tourist trip for them. Then we supplied 4 photographers from the stake. They took about 3,000 pictures. They are going to put together a video/slide show for all the kids and I'm going to host the bulk pictures on my web site for people that want a copy of a picture. But it will take a couple of weeks for them to go through the pictures and a couple of weeks for me to upload everything to my web site.