McKibben Family Blog

Saturday July 16th

Day #4

This was our last day and boy was I ready to be done!  It was a great experience and all, but I was tired and my feet had had it!

 This is not a picture of my feet, but of one of our kids.  Mine were pretty much like this...so many blisters and the one infected toe.  As soon as I got up and got dressed and went over and had the medics wrap up my feet again.  I was there for an hour while my family packed up our tents.  The nurse had a hard time wrapping up my infected toe.  She had to do it a couple of different times because the moleskin was too thick and I couldn't get my boot on.  I finally got it on, but was in a lot of pain so I had to take some Advil to lessen the pain.

 After everyone was packed up, they had about an hour of solo time where each kid would take their buckets and find a secluded spot somewhere in the campground.  They could write in their journals, or read their scriptures.  It was just a time for some personal reflection on what they had endured during the past 3 days.  They also got a letter from their parents then that they could read which I thought was really cool.  By the time I got back from the nurse, they was only about 10-15 minutes left.    

 Then we were finally able to eat breakfast! It was so good!  Pancakes and sausages, muffins, boiled eggs, and apples and oranges.  

 This is the food committee's set up for that morning.  I am so grateful for them!!

 After breakfast they were trying to get company pictures, so if it wasn't your turn, they just had everyone hang out.  These are four of our kids....Paige, Tyler, Jenna and Annabelle.

 This is our company--the Hinkey Company.

 This is Maggie's company--the Jordan Company. Unfortunately, you can't see her in the picture because some kid's hat is blocking her face.  

These guys are the Company Captains and the one in the middle is the Trail Boss.  L to R:  Brother Jordan, Brother Hinkey, Brother Littlefield, Brother Josie and Brother Templeton.

Our family:  (back row) Jenna, Tyler, Josh, Jared, McKenzie, Jenna; (front row) Paige, Liam, Joe and Annabelle.

After pictures, it was time to load up and trek out to where we were meeting parents.  It was supposed to be around 2 miles and then at the last 1/4 mile, the parents were supposed to meet up with their kids and trek the last little bit with them.  

 Our family with our captain helping us on the end of the stick.

 We pulled into a clearing and parked the carts for a little bit.  They had a short devotional prepared for us and the trek choir sang a song or two.  

 President Stoddard from the stake presidency did the devotional.  It was really good.

 Maggie and Emma

 After the devotional, they had to get the carts to a different area where they could take them apart and where everyone could get their stuff.  So, they took one family at a time and got everything unloaded and made sure that each kid got with their ride home.  The people in the picture above (The Nissinens) were in charge of making sure people got to where they were supposed to go.  Plus, they had to cross a road so they made sure the cars were stopped when people had to cross.  

 Out on the trail again...

 Our girls leading the way.

 I'm not sure who is in the picture, but it sure was a pretty area.

 I'm so grateful to always have this guy by my side.  He makes everything fun!

 Taking a rest along the trail

 Today's trail had a lot more hills on it.  

 We had a nice break in the woods somewhere where we got a snack and the chance to listen to some more pioneer stories.  I spent a lot of that time in the never-ending line for the bathrooms.

 We were back at it after that.  So many ups and downs on the trail.  Hard to pull the wagon up the hill  and just as hard taking it back down without letting it get out of control.  Poor Garrett's knees were really hurting on the down hill parts.  

 Soon after, we pulled into an area for lunch.  Kind of a strange lunch--peanut butter and jelly on tortillas.  Why tortillas?  Isn't bread just as easy to pack?  Sure it might get smashed, but I'd take smashed bread over tortillas any day.  They also had chips and oranges to eat.  

 Our kids hanging out after they finished eating.  I'm glad they got along so well.  

 We hiked for a while longer and then took a break to get ready for the women's pull.  I didn't participate in the women's pull on the last trek and I have really regretted it.  So I was determined to be a part of this one.  They split us up so the girls went to one place and had a devotional and the boys had their own devotional somewhere else.  They had this musical number and some talks and emphasized how women could do hard things.  I don't remember exactly what was talked about, but I'm pretty sure that was the gist of it.  

 They decided that each family would pull their own cart.  (Last time, they didn't use all the carts--they just used however many was needed for the number of women that participated.)  So all the females in the family would pull their own cart.  That meant there were six of us pulling our cart.  I was kinda worried because I didn't think we'd be able to do it.  But, they added all of the female committee members to everyone's carts so that there were at least 8 or 9 people on each cart.  I was trying to be supportive and encouraging, but inside I was really scared because I knew it was going to be really hard.

 This is our family lining up getting ready for our turn to start.  They had the guys in the family walk right behind us, but they weren't allowed to say a word.  I'm not sure if it was to symbolize that they were dead, like how many pioneer men died and left the wives and kids to pull the carts.  But having them still supporting us from the other side of the veil, or what.  But, we all thought that it would've been nice to hear their words of encouragement and their cheering us on.  

Here we are trying to get the cart up and over a rock.  It was so hard to pull that cart!!

We made it to the top though.  I jumped out at what I thought was the end...I was having such a hard time breathing...the guys were able to jump in and help at this point though.  I wish I would've kept going, but I thought they were done.  They kept walking for a little bit longer, so I guess I can say that I went most of the way.  Some of the girls when they got to the stopping point were running back down the hill to give some of the other carts more help and support.  I loved that about these girls!  What great examples!!

After the women's pull, we got the families back together and continued on.  There were so many hills!! I tried to get pictures of how steep these hills were and how rocky they were.  It's kinda hard to tell though.  It was definitely challenging!  Our family worked well together.

This kind of looks like we were going up this hill, but this was going down, actually.  

At this point, we were pretty close to walking into "Zion."  Well, that's what they kept telling us.  They had estimated that we would walk 10 miles today, but someone said we actually walked 13 miles.  As we were getting closer, some of the families were singing hymns as they got closer.  That was pretty cool.  We didn't really have any very strong singers in our family, so we'd start but we were all really quiet and it didn't last long.  

As we were coming into Zion, all the people on the various committees came out along the trail and were clapping and singing and welcoming us to Zion.  

Maggie's family--they were the last company

Finally there!!  We got there around 4, which was right on schedule.  I have to say that I felt more emotional on the last trek while we were walking into Zion. I'm not sure why--maybe because we were really tried on that last leg...trying to pull our carts through the sand in the 110 degree weather and being out of water...and then seeing Zion with the beautiful grass and trees and the sprinklers...I don't know.  It was still cool this time, but not as spiritually moving as the last one.   

We were all happy to sit down and rest!  The treat for the day for completing the Trail of Faith was an otter pop--that's what we were eating in the picture.  We were camped next to a river and it cooled off a lot as soon as we got into camp.  Not sure if that was why or if it just decided to cool down.  

We rested a bit and got tents set up and we just had the kids wander around and talk with friends.  When I took my boot off, I noticed that the wound that I got the day before was infected and it really hurt!  It would've been fine, but we still had a couple of miles to trek the next day.  I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get my boot back on!

After getting camp set up, they had dinner ready to go for us.  It was so nice to not have to do anything!  And it was really good!  They had pulled pork sandwiches, salad, fruit and a yummy brownie.  They had a hair washing station set up near the river, but it had cooled off so much that even though my hair needed a good wash, I was too cold to want to try.  They also had other pioneer games and activities set up and I'm sure a lot of kids participated, but Garrett and I just hung out at our tent and rested.  

Some of the tents.

This is Maggie's family...proud of making it into Zion.

After dinner they had square dancing for an hour.  The kids absolutely love square dancing.  I'm not sure where they got the energy for it, but they sure had a great time.

The amount of dust in the air was ridiculous...

Maggie dancing the cotton-eyed joe.  

When the dancing was over, everyone went with their companies for a campfire devotional and testimony meeting.  And then it was time for bed!  :)