Part 3: Martin's Cove

We happily (and hopefully noisily at 7am) left Guernsey, WY and headed to Martin's cove, a quick three hour jaunt away. We were there in time for church. The Church has quite an impressive campus there. [It includes the large meeting room, some housing, a visitor's center, and numerous smaller "period" buildings.] We met in a nice large room for testimony meeting. [The room was filled with dozens of missionary couples and other families visiting the area.] Bekah bore her testimony, it was so sweet. We all attended primary with Elder and Sister Grover, and our family members were the sole recipients of their wonderful lessons! [It was so great that these missionary couples had activities and lessons and snacks planned just in case they had someone there visiting!]
Roger and Louise of course know a couple that is serving in Martin's Cove. They are the Erekson's and are from Edgewood, NM. After church they took us to the "Route 66 Missionary RV Park" where all of the missionaries that are serving there live. Many of the missionaries bring their own RVs, but there is also some housing available there. We all enjoyed a really relaxing afternoon visiting with the Erekson's. Beau told me that night that he had the most fun that afternoon playing in the gravel at our campsite with Marianne. We were treated to dinner with all of the missionary couples at a pavilion at the campsite that night. I was feeling a little under the weather, and it was a shame because the food they made looked delicious.
Monday 8/4
Elder and Sister Erekson treated us to breakfast at their trailer - which the kids thought was a mansion compared to Nana and Big Papa's RV. (Which is a mansion in its own right when compared to our pop-up.)
Afterwards we headed back to the Martin's Cove campus so we could go on an authentic 5 mile trek - handcart and all, guided by the Ereksons.
We started by seeing the "baptismal font" in the Sweetwater. Isn't that neat that you can be baptized in the actual Sweetwater River?
Next we visited Fort Seminoe and learned about the "valley boys" who were part of the rescue group for the saints who were struggling and in very precarious circumstances on their way to Salt Lake City. These saints would not have survived had it not been for the rescue groups sent by President Brigham Young to give them aid and nourishment and hope at a very bleak part of their journey. Fort Seminoe is where the members of the church who were crossing the plains in wagons left many of their goods so that there could be room in the wagons to carry the sick. Martin's cove is where the rescuers took the saints, in the wagons, to get them out of the harsh weather conditions and give them respite so they could continue their journey.
The Sweetwater river snakes around and the saints had to cross it repeatedly. We only had to cross it twice and both times we had the option of using a bridge. But the first time, Big Papa wanted to carry the kids across the Sweetwater himself. I was really impressed with that.
Nana and Rus pulled the handcart across.
Marianne really latched on to Sister Erekson. They were buddies the entire time. That day, Marianne got dressed because of Sister Erekson, let me do her hair because of Sister Erekson, and walked more than she probably would have because she got to use a walking stick like Sister Erekson.
At one point in the trek, we left the handcarts and walked a mile back into Martin's Cove. Elder Erekson spoke with us there and told us how Wyoming doesn't have a temple, but it has Martin's Cove. It is a sacred place and the visitors there are asked to treat it as such.
Elder and Sister Grover, our primary teachers, were manning the station at the trailhead for Martin's Cove. We had to get a picture of the kids with them.
The rest of the trek wrapped up nicely.

Epic Seven State Road Trip: Part 1

Our family dared to do the impossible this summer: go on a 12-day road trip pulling the pop-up trailer and camp all along the way. It started with wanting to go to Mt. Rushmore. If you make it through all of these posts, you will find the presidents' carved noggins in NONE of them...it turns out that the week we planned to go was the same week when all of the motorcycling world planned to have a rally at Rushmore. BUT. Since we'd already opened up the door to the idea of a road trip, and talked with Rus' parents about doing part of the trip with them, we were committed. Instead of heading through Nebraska to South Dakota (as originally planned), we rendezvoused in Nebraska so the men could tour a bullet manufacturing plant in Grand Island. So, just to put it all succinctly: I'd rather explain the route of our trip by saying it was to not go to Rushmore, rather than admit that it was to tour a bullet manufacturing plant. Anyway...
Here's our trip in a nutshell:
Day 1: Albuquerque to John Martin Reservoir, CO
Day 2: John Martin Reservoir to Grand Island, NE
Day 3: Stay in Grand Island
Day 4: Grand Island, NE to Guernsey, WY
Day 5: Guernsey, WY to Martin's Cove, WY
Day 6: Martin's Cove, WY to Soda Springs, ID
Day 7: Stay in Soda Springs
Day 8: Soda Springs, ID to Rexburg, ID
Day 9: Rexburg, ID to West Yellowstone, MT
Day 10: Stay in West Yellowstone
Day 11: W. Yellowstone, MT to Yampa River State Park, CO
Day 12: Yampa River State Park, CO to Albuquerque, NM
I took notes each day to try to keep things straight, so I'm just going to type those up here and include as few possible of the hundreds of pictures that we took...I've added some comments to my notes, they are contained in [brackets]. So here we go:

Thursday 7/31
Woke up in John Martin Reservoir campground. I went for a run from our campsite (which is at the base of the dam) to the top of the dam...thought it'd just be a couple miles but in the end it was four. Funniest thing - all of us were chasing Marianne around the campsite and when we got close to her she just stood there and her pants dropped spontaneously and we were all laughing. [We laughed about her "super power" the whole trip, actually.]

Here we are at the top of the dam:


We stopped in Kansas at the Fick Fossil Museum and the lady (a Mennonite), was so nice to the kids - she opened up a beautifully restored fire truck and let the kids climb in and play. They loved all of the shark teeth in the museum. [Apparently there was a couple who ranched in that part of Kansas and they found thousands of shark teeth on their property...from long ago when it was part of the ocean. This same couple started the museum.] The kids also loved buying souvenirs. [Oh gosh. The kids were souvenir OBSESSED. They could not wait to spend the money they had saved all summer!] We played on the playground. They had a merry-go-round, all fun and games until Jacob fell off.
Oh! And in Colorado we passed through a stretch of road where we saw at least a dozen ornate box turtles trying to cross the road - some successfully, some not. We stopped once to get two out of the road. [Turtles pee buckets when they are scared, did you know that? And they weren't scared by huge semis zooming by, they were scared by me picking them up! I didn't get peed on, though.] We saw a little guy in the road and decided to keep him with us for entertainment. We put him - actually her, the kids named her Rose - in a laundry basket. [You can tell the sex of a turtle by it's eye color. Boys have red eyes. Girls have black eyes.]

It was fun to watch her try to escape. At one point, Marianne said, "The turtle's gone!" And when we looked, she wasn't in the basket! We looked for a minute and found her climbing up the seat behind Marianne's seat. We kept a closer eye on her after that. [We found Rose a great home at our campsite in NE. Some might say "sudden transferring" her was cruel. But they didn't see that stretch of shell-dappled highway in CO or the quaint stream we left her by in NE...]
We were happy to pull into Mormon Island RV park, Grand Island, Nebraska, and see Big Papa and Nana waiting for us. [Here's our campsite.]

And better yet, they had dinner ready for us! We enjoyed a slow morning before Rus, his dad, Jacob and Bekah headed to Hornady, a bullet manufacturing plant, and Nana, Beau, Marianne and I headed out to the Stuhr Pioneer Museum. We went to Railroad Town in the museum, a little town replicated circa 1894. There was a schoolhouse, bank, mercantile, barber shop, millinery, tin smith, blacksmith shop, and train depot, among others.



Nana and I enjoyed it, while Beau's favorite part was buying stuff at the gift shop - a little stuffed animal wolf key chain and "gold" candy.
We all met up for lunch back at the RV park and after a short siesta we headed to Island Oasis Waterpark. It had two sinisterly tall slides that Bekah loved but I swear took the skin off my back. [I screamed like a little girl. I thought I was going to die for about 2.7 seconds - how long it took to drop roughly 3000 feet.] It also had four other water slides that everyone loved, a wave pool that Nana especially loved, and a fun lazy river that we rode with inner tubes. It was fun for all of us!

Total time it took us to get from Albuquerque to John Martin Reservoir: 8 hours
Distance: 367 miles
Driving time: 5.5 hours (i.e. how long it might take if you didn't have kids, or a husband with a small bladder)

Part 2: Grand Island to Redneckville RV Park, WY

We packed up and headed out early from Grand Island, intending to go as far as Scott's Bluff. We stopped at a Cabelas so the men could look for .22 ammo [another hidden agenda of our trip]. They found some and the kids found mini-multi tools for only $6! They were thrilled. [These tools would become the bane of our trip. One was always, always lost.]
The next stop was the Golden Spike Tower in North Platte.

It is an eight story tower overlooking the world's largest rail yard, Bailey yard.

It is three miles wide at the widest, and eight miles long. The kids - and the adults - enjoyed watching the trains move around the yard, the engines assemble, and the train cars slide down the rails in the hump yards.

Of course the kids bought souvenirs at the gift shop. We ate lunch there, in the RV. Beau caught a frog. His second frog in as many days. He's a frog whisperer.

Our next stop was at Chimney Rock. There is a really nice visitor's center there. If you visit, you'll learn what the Native American's name for the landmark was. The kids enjoyed loading up a 1/2 sized wagon with provisions...and perusing the gift shop. [We learned what a relief it was for pioneers and other west-ward travelers to see this obvious landmark. Rus and I were even relieved to see it after driving in the flattest country imaginable for two days straight.]

We made our final stop for the night in Guernsey, WY. We got in late, and the only campground we could get into was a cramped little one located between a canal and a golf course. Perk - there was a small (tiny) play structure there that kept Marianne entertained. Downside - a big group with too much beer. We cooked over a fire - the campfire mac and cheese I'd found on Pinterest was a hit!

Time it took us to get from Grand Island to Guernsey: 11 hours
Distance: 383 miles
Driving time: 6 hours