No running today. Trek report only. The cows didn't wake me up this morning. I'm not sure where they were. However, someone woke all of us food committee people up at 5:30 so that we could have breakfast made by 6:30. I was in charge of mixing the pancake batter. We had a huge bag of powdered mix from IHOP. I wasn't very good at it. The guy who was the head of the food committee was cooking pancakes he was very particular about his pancakes. First I had the batter too thin, then I had it too thick, then it was mixed too much and was too smooth. I was not really happy with that guy at that point. Not only did we had to get breakfast ready, but at the same time we had to get the lunches put together and handed out to the "families" because they were taking their lunch with them to eat on the trail. We had done some of the prep for the lunch the night before. There were 24 families, each consisting of 8 or 9 kids and a ma and pa. Each family had one handcart. In addition, there were various other adults who weren't connected to a family, such as the bishops, who each led a company, which consisted of 3 or 4 families, and as well as the wagon master and his wife, members of the stake presidency, medical staff, and photographers. The families and other adults headed out on the trail after breakfast. Here's a picture of my son getting ready to head out on the trail that morning. 
A little while after they left we got a call on the radio that there was a girl who was sick and needed to be picked up. We had cars, so it fell to us to go get her. We had some free time that day since they were eating lunch on the trail, so 6 of us got in someone's Suburban and went to get the girl because we wanted to see them on the trail. We went to a spot that we could drive a car to and that they would be passing through and waited for them. Here's a picture of them as they first started to arrive at that spot. Excuse the missionary sitting on a golf cart in the foreground. 
It turned out that there were 3 girls who wanted to be picked up instead of one. I suspect that a couple of them who, when they realized that there was a car and a way to get out of walking, jumped out at the chance. But the car we were in only held 8 people and 6 of us had come, so with 3 more passengers, the car was over full. So another woman and I volunteered to walk with the trekkers at that point and the car was going to meet us further along because they were going to take the girls to the next stop, which was the crossing of the Sweetwater River. At the Sweetwater River crossing they talked about how the pioneers had gotten to that point and they needed to cross the river to get to Martin's Cove, a couple of miles away, where they would have some protection from the elements, but it was freezing and the river was partially frozen, and many of them felt like they couldn't do it. The rescuers from Salt Lake had reached them by that time and 4 young men from the rescue company spent all day carrying people across the river. One of the 4 young men was the great great grandfather of the man who was the wagon master for our group and who was telling this story to the kids. They tried to make the river crossing a very reverent and spiritual experience. They crossed the river a family at a time and in each family they had two boys carry a girl across the river in memory of these four men, and then the rest of the family brought the cart across the river. Here is a picture of my son carrying a girl across the river. He's the one on the right. Because of the side of the river I was on, I could only get a picture of his back. 
The river got up slightly above their knees at the deepest point. After the river crossing, I noticed the dog Oscar. There was an article about Oscar in the July Friend magazine. It's posted here. Here's a picture I took of Oscar: 
The sign in the picture is pointing to the place where the handcarts cross the river. There's also a bridge, which you can see a little of in the picture. Apparently Oscar is afraid of the bridge and always swims across the river. Oscar followed our group back to camp that night, stayed in our camp all night and barked at the coyotes and walked with our group back to the visitor's center the next day. It was fun to have Oscar join our group. After the river crossing, my husband and I (he had joined me after riding in the car to the river crossing) and others walked with the group to Martin's Cove. Here's a picture of my husband and me just outside of Martin's Cove. This is the only picture I have of myself on the trek. 
I have to say, I actually liked the bonnet. Maybe it didn't look so great, but it was good for shade and it kept my hair out of my face. After the visit to Martin's Cove, we drove back to camp to prepare dinner. We ended up not taking any of the three girls home because I guess after a little car ride and rest they decided they could walk some more. After dinner that evening, the kids had a devotional that I didn't go to, and then testimony meetings in ward groups. Then the kids were really noisy and didn't quite down for a long time even though it was very late. And it was very very windy that night. I mean very very very windy.
| 
