Ss & Ts: Trek Day 3

Here's the whole group after sleeping in a lovely, hilly meadow. We were stalked all night by a big black bull who wasn't too happy that we were there. He also really liked the "fire soup" we had left for him to drink after the evening camp fires! Shan and another Pa spent a long time in the night trying to keep the bull from nibbling on toes!

With the morning, we had a burial for two little boys who had been on Trek with us.

Traci stops to give Jill and Clark a hug (and we giggled, thinking of all our kids having a whopper of a slumber party while we were gone!). Then we rolled out for the day.

Here's our lovely Chinese trader again. Today, she didn't want a song, she wanted cash.

We sang for her anyway -- here's our company with JD leading "The Spirit of God."

Then the US Army arrives to recruit the Mormon Battalion. So that's how we were supposed to get the cash....

Our boys serving in the Mormon Battalion, receive instructions and wait for the women to arrive.

Finally our cart gets near the top --we had originally been told that we would only be able to have 6 women with the cart, so we had taken off the extra bar. Luckliy, they allowed other girls to come back and help us, otherwise our stake president's wife would have been a casualty!

After the girl's hill, the worry of it caught up to me and though I was just walking behind the cart, I couldn't concentrate on anything but not falling and I was really nauseous. We determined that I was having a migraine and the family put me on the cart for a while.

And here's what you see from the top of a handcart -- angels!

Didn't know til we got home that Shan still had the other camera! The kids in our family claim that they cart was lighter with me in it. I won't tell them how much I weigh!

Hah! I got him too! Shan and Bruce were watching from the back to make sure I wasn't going to fall off -- but later in the afternoon, another Ma fainted during a little break. At this point, Shan gave me a blessing and I was grateful for Aleve and a pocketful of mints with caffeine in them. At lunch, we had the "miracle of the diet Coke". The sister who had been packing our tuna salad in her cooler, felt that she should leave the two Diet Cokes that she had in it. That was the perfect thing for me! More angels!

With the unplanned things of the morning, we had a Ma/Pa meeting. This led to the decision to change course. Everything they had hoped to accomplish had already been done. We decided to take the shorter way, but the risk was that we would pass very close to base camp. Then, the wonderful fog rolled in and visibility was virtually GONE! None of the kids in our family knew we were so close to base camp.

Tired out, the guys plunge into setting up camp and getting our fire made before it's too wet. The fog finally started to lift a little at this time.

Finally, after this emotional and tiring day, we get dinner and an earlier night than we had expected. Good family time around the camp fire and a chance to talk through the events of the day!