Last year, when we were still in Utah, the youth came back from Trek, and so sacrament meeting was them talking about how Trek strengthened their testimonies, and what they did, etc. And it sounded really, really, really lame. I turned to Aaron and said "Boy, I'm glad I never had/have to to that, it sounds so dumb." Flash forward to about 2 weeks after we moved to our current ward. The Bishop asked to talk to us, so we knew it was about a calling, but I just assumed we'd be teaching the youth, or something. Lo and behold, he asked us if we would be a Trek "Ma and Pa." The two people in change of a "family" of kids. We said we would, barring whatever internship Aaron got preventing him from being able to take the time off.
That was back in April, I think. And we were told that someone from the Trek committee would call us soon with more instructions, and tell us when meetings were and such. Following that people kept asking "oh, have the Trek people contacted you yet?" Nope, and time when on, with no word, which made me very anxious. Fast forward to the last week in June, there was finally a meeting for the Ma's and Pa's. The meeting was not very helpful. While they did give us a schedule of the goings-on, it was easy to see how very unorganized everything was, especially for an huge event that was 3 weeks away. We learned that were about 80 kids going, that were were only traveling 8 miles over 2 days, and that we were to "stress the kids out, to help them grow spiritually". I should note that trek that the Utah ward did was well over 13 miles, so we were severely lacking in distance. We were also told not to answer the kids questions like "how far are we traveling?" "where are we?" etc, as part of the "stressing the kids" thing. And we decided immediately that that was dumb, and we wouldn't be doing that. Apparently we were told we needed to bring things to handle a dutch oven, which neither Aaron nor I remembered hearing about (more on that later).
So we had one meeting before this pretty big event.
We got a call from someone the night before asking us for some information, which we didn't have, of course.And, aside from all of this nonsense, I would be missing two days of work. Which means two days of pay. In a time when we are very quickly running out on money. I decided to try to go on faith. God wants me at this thing that I really don't want to go to, at a time when I really need the money from work. Ok, I'm trusting you God, let's do this.
Thursday morning we show up that the appointed place, with the gear we needed. (We were given several conflicting lists of what to bring and not bring (And for some reason, flash lights were not on the kids equipment lists
)). We saw one of the kids from our Sunday School class, Ben, hanging out in front of the building. That kid is, well, I think he's like Aaron was at that age. Too smart for his own good, constantly bored, and very sarcastic. He's actually a lot of fun. And he reminds me of a young Cuyler (mostly because of his hair). So we go in, and try to figure out what's going on, people are milling about. We received a packet with information on who our kids are, a family bandana (we got grey), and little name tags with information about our pioneers (we were the Watson's, I think). So Ben was in our group and another kid from our class, Jordan. We were surprised, because at the meeting they'd said the kids wouldn't be with their friends, or adults from their wards. (Also of interest, was my friend Brianon's cousin was in our group). So we wandered around the gym, looking for the kids we didn't know with the grey bandanas. Our other kids were Kaylene (bubbly, cheery girl), Becky (very shy, but a helpful kid), Peyton (very talkative girl), Thomas (Brianon's cousin, and a hard worker), Josh (pretty boy who knew it, a typical teen), and Steven (Josh's friend, they were silly together). Four boys and girls. From there, we drove to the starting place. The start was at a private campground owned by HP, up somewhere near Big Basin in Boulder Creek. I really wished I had brought my license because I was super carsick most of the way up, due to the windy roads. Actually, they didn't tell us it was on private HP property, so we got to the gate that said "Private property, trespassers will be prosecuted". So initially we turned around, but then saw someone in a truck filled with gear, so we followed them. We parked the car in a field with some other cars and wandered around til our kids showed up. It was a really hot day, I think it got up (or possibly over) 92. So walking around in bulky pioneer clothes was not super fun. Once most of our kids arrived there, we got breakfast, and then finished loading the cart. A lady came by and asked if we had our oven mits, tongs, pliers and a serving spoon for the dutch oven. We said no, that no one that told us we needed them. She said she had told us we needed them at the meeting, got huffy and literally threw her hands up and walked away. I then turned to Aaron and said "It's an adventure, Charlie."
We started out a lot later than anticipated, which became a bigger issue later. In the beginning, the boys pulled the cart and the girls walked along behind. It was flat, and easy, so we all chatted. Along the way, there were vignettes about Pioneer stuff. They were kind of cheesy at first. Some were sad, about people losing limbs, or their lives, or their loved ones. As we continued, it got a lot more hilly. And everyone had to help push or pull. They all worked together really well. We got to one really steep hill, where the dirt was really sandy and the cart in front of ours got stuck. So the group decided that we would run the hill, to avoid getting stuck, all 8 kids were on the cart, pushing or pulling. They made it up in one go. I was really proud of them. When we finally stopped for lunch, the whole group was 2 hours behind where we were supposed to be. So we ate, some of the kids played in the creek. About this time, I started feeling really bad. My gallbladder chose an awesome time to be unhappy. So I didn't feel well for 2ish hours, but I didn't have time to rest, so I just took some Tylenol and went with it. After lunch we had some activities: shooting olde tyme guns, pulling the cart across the creek and up the bank using a pulley and a service project. There was supposed to be another activity, but it was cut, since we were already so far behind (it was pioneer games). Shooting was ok, we only got one shot. I chose the pistol and missed entirely. Aaron hit his target. At the end they asked if anyone wanted to try to shoot an egg, but if they missed, they'd have to eat the raw egg. Ben said he was going to do it. And much to everyone's surprise, he was right on the mark. After that we did the cart in the creek thing. I chose not to do that, because I didn't want to get my one pair of shoes wet. Aaron said he was going to skip it too, but all our kids booed us, so he went back to help. The edge of the creek was really high and steep, probably 75 degrees or so. I thought for sure that our stuff was going to spill out into the creek below. Thankfully, it didn't. After that we did the service project, which was trimming back brush and undergrowth. After that we walked further. There were more vignettes, by then we were all tried and sweaty.
By the time we got to camp, it was 7:30, or maybe later. Then we started the dutch oven for dinner. I had no clue how long things took to cook in a dutch oven. It was after 9:30 by the time we actually ate. We were able to borrow some hot pads and tongs from others, but we weren't the only ones without them. We found out from another ma and pa that there was another meeting about a week before trek, but no one called or emailed us about it. Nice. After the very late dinner and trying to clean thing up in the dark, there was a fireside. It was pretty good, the part we caught. It was about having a "Here am I" attitude instead of a "What about me?" attitude. It really got me thinking, because I'm like 90% "what about me". I don't like to volunteer for things, I don't like to feel put upon, or put out. My attitude is bad, and I know it. Just something to make me think.
After that we all got ready for bed. I realize that when we were crossing the creek, all my stuff got wet. So I got to change into damp undies and pjs. It was lame. I visited the port-o-potty once more, and wished there was running water. The guys went off to the boys camp, and my girls settled it. We were on a pretty hilly site. My girls stayed up late talking, which I didn't mind, as I wasn't sleeping anyway. It was probably around 4 by the time I slept. It was neat to be able to just look at the sky. I've never just slept in a sleeping bag on the ground.
When I woke up, we'd all slid down the hill quite a bit. It was still warm, which is odd for the Santa Cruz mountains, it's usually cold overnight. That morning, the guys were "drafted into the army" so the girls would be pulling the cart on their own. They were a little concerned about this, but were excited to prove themselves. So three of the girls got on the front, and Jordan and I pushed from the back. It was very hard work. But we didn't have to push it too far before the guys came back. Then all 8 handcarts were just parked on the side of the trail, and the planning people said now we're going to have breakfast, here's your dutch ovens. To which everyone said Are you serious? We'll be here for 2 hours. Then the planning people were like Oh yeah, umm, eat some snacks, we'll make the oatmeal and bring it to you later. (It should be mentioned that we were about an hour behind already). So we all continued up the hill. The second day was pretty much entirely up hill. Our kids were so good. They didn't complain and were always wanted to go fast, with very few breaks. Unfortunately the cart in front of us took a break seemingly every ten minutes, so we were stuck behind them a lot. But I was really impressed with our kids.
Around 2:30 we made it into camp, which was at Camp Lehi, a campground. So we had flush toilets, and soap and running water. It was nice. We all took a break for about 30 minutes, and I drank about 3 liters of water in that amount of time. After that we had some fun-tivities. Then dinner, which we thankfully did not have to cook ourselves. But there weren't any vegetarian options for a main course; so I had a lot of salad and bread. One of the planning people was told about my wet clothes (by Aaron) and she said there's a dryer you can use. (And then the angels sang). Halelujah! It was so nice to be able to change into clean, dry underwear. After dinner we had a hoe-down. We all learned the Virginia Reel. I got to dance with Aaron, and all our kids danced. It was a lot of fun. After the dancing, we had another fireside, it was mostly testimony sharing, but it was really good. I felt the spirit a lot. After that the girls went back to the girls side, and we had another mini-fireside, which was also quite good.
That night we had a flatter campsite. My girls wanted to stay up late talking, which was fine with me. A couple other girls who weren't mine came to our site to sleep too. They stayed up til 12:30 or 1 talking. It was neat listening to them. Even though they're 14-16 year olds, they were all very bright, and had a lot of good insights. I fell asleep somewhere around 12:30 or 1, and slept a lot better that night.
The next morning was Saturday. We got up, and packed all our stuff, and went to eat breakfast. Aaron and I found our car, and put our stuff in before we ate. After that our family was assigned to clean one of the boys' bathrooms. It was not bad, and was quick work. While we were sitting around after that, a bat came and landed on Kaylene's hat! Bat on hat! It was quite cute actually. It just sat there a long time, seemingly asleep. So Aaron took the hat and carried it to the edge of the wood, and shook the bat off. Then we noticed there was another bat on the tree behind us.
We could have used some bats earlier that morning, there were so many mosquitoes! When that was done the kids pulled the empty carts up to the top of the road. Everyone was happy and just fooling around. Then we had to do skits about teamwork. And then we got to go home!
I got car sick again on the ride home. Zelda and Moss were both so happy to see us. I knew Zelda would be, but I was surprised about Moss. Aaron and I both took showers, that was heavenly. It had been since Wednesday since I'd showered, and I was dirty and sweaty and greasy. It was nice. Then Aaron and I slept for 3.5 hours. Now I'm grouchy and still tired, and quite itchy.
All in all, I'm really glad we went. It was hard. Really hard at some points, and very, very poorly planned. But we had a lot of good experiences and it really was a testimony builder for me.
