TREK 2023

TREK is an immersive multi-day experience, where the participants not only dress in period clothing from the mid-1800's, but they also reenact the journey of the pioneers crossing the plains.  The experience is  meant to be as authentic as possible, without people actually dying, getting lost, giving birth, or starving along the trail.   In other words, it's basically a long walk while pulling/pushing a handcart.   Someone else cooks, our camping gear is "magically" delivered to the campsite each night, there are porta-potties along the way, and the only gear we tote in the handcarts is the gear we may need along the way (water, ponchos, sunblock, flashlights, snacks, etc.)   They have little "vignettes" along the way to remind us of some of the actual pioneers who crossed the plains and their inspiring stories. 

 Our stake in Virginia had Pioneer Trek reenactments scheduled for a youth conference activity every four years.   Spencer and Emma each attended once, Cami attended twice (#1, #2), Adam never got to go and Ellie missed her first opportunity (thanks to a scheduling snafu by the stake the year it was supposed to happen).  Then between COVID and all of our moving around the last few years,  I wasn't sure if Ellie would end up like Adam and never have the opportunity to participate or not.   As luck would have it though,  this year ended up being the year!  

 Here is a picture of the group from our ward that went.  Weirdly enough, we were the smallest ward, though with that size we likely would have been one of the biggest wards in our stakes out east.   

  Not only did Ellie get to go, but they asked Glen and I to be a Ma and Pa, so we got to be a part of the whole shebang  as well.  We'd helped {pretty significantly} at Treks a few times before, but this was our first time actually trekking along with the youth and having the full experience.      

I was a little nervous about the dynamics of it beforehand, but it ended up being a great experience and I'm glad we were able to go.   Here is a picture of us with our "family".   They were a great hard-working group, albeit  a little on the young side...especially the boys.    The kids called us "Mama G. and Papa G.".   😁

Ellie was a part of the B. family and barely ever had to pull or push the handcart, since her family had some older boys who liked to do it.  No worries though...our family needed all the help we could get, so she came and helped push/pull our handcart several times to have the experience.   

Our kids really worked hard, but they were young and needed some breaks too.   Glen and I were almost always either helping to pull or push as well.   

These were our boys...all of them 12 or 13 years old...except of course for Papa G!     

We had 5 girls, two of which were 12   .  

I had a minor meltdown on the very first day when we went to pick up our lunches and was informed that no food allergy accommodations were being made whatsoever.  They had the gall to ask me whether I got  the memo that anyone with food allergies was supposed to bring their own food?    Um, no.    Minor detail everyone forgot to mention to me and I was not happy.  There I was at the beginning of 3 days of physical exertion, many miles from a store,  being told that they had minimal food I could actually eat.   I tried really hard to be nice, but I won't lie, I may have copped a bit of an attitude about it.   I have spent my whole adult life as a sort of food allergy advocate--trying really hard to make sure that people with food allergies are well fed and feel like they're not an inconvenience, and it hurt, on the one hand, to be told that my food allergies were not important enough for them to accommodate, but even more so because NO ONE TOLD ME!   That was a HUGE oversight on the stake's part and I still feel like I need to have words with someone about it, so it doesn't happen again in the future.   In the end,  it ended up "okay" with the food people from our ward  pulling ingredients for me before combining them and them saving leftovers from one night's dinner to fill in for another night, but I did not like how this went down.   Here I am with a lunchmeat lettuce roll-up that I had every day for lunch.  

Alright....enough complaining!   The three of us all wore thick socks and hiking shoes the whole way, so we managed to escape any blisters, though we were definitely  in the minority on that!   I felt bad for Emily, our ward nurse, who was tasked with keeping moleskin on anyone who felt like they were getting a blister.  She had a full-time {rather gross} job!   

   I changed into my water shoes at the end of each day and I laughed at how much easier the dirt was to see without any socks on.  We were FILTHY!  😂  

It was fun to be there with Ellie...even if she wasn't officially in our Trek family!  

We had 3 "families" in our ward and these were the buckets we toted around for the 3 days (divided up amongst the 3 handcarts).   

The weather was mostly sunny and the low 80's while we were there, but we did get a little rain and thunder every day.   I was VERY grateful we were trekking at the beginning of June, rather than the end!   

I started coming down with symptoms of a bad cold during Trek and I ended up totally EXHAUSTED!   I felt bad for exposing others, but felt like I didn't really have the option of going home in the middle, so I just had a more authentic experience....plus we were outside the whole time, so I'm hoping exposure was actually minimal.    

Here is Connor--one of our Trek sons.  He was in our Sunday School class last year and we were very excited to have him as one of our sons for the journey!  

I loved this picture he drew about Trek.  😍

We were sweaty, smelly, and covered head-to-toe with a layer of dirt at the end, but that didn't stop us from making a quick stop with our car-full of youth to get some Coldstone on the way home.  The cashier officially thought we were whack, but the ice cream was just what we needed after 3 days in the sun, so  whatevs.   And Trek probably is kind of  whack.  

Here's one last look at the awesome family of Mama and Papa G!  

All in all, other than the food debacle, we are calling Trek 2023 (our last, perhaps?) a success!