Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Pioneer Activities
July 24 was “Pioneer Day”, the anniversary of the Mormon pioneers reaching the Salt Lake Valley. It’s a much bigger deal in Utah than anywhere else, for obvious reasons, but our local branch of the church did have two activities in honor of the day.
Last Saturday we had a “Pioneer Trek”, a 13 mile hike complete with a handcart that people pushed/pulled along. I didn’t think the kids would be quite up for that long of a hike, so we decided to join them half way and bike instead of walk. Leslie rode her own (gearless) bike, Emily rode behind me on the “trailer bike” that we bought a few weeks ago. Pauline ran some errands then drove the car to the church to meet us at the end.
Our part of the trek began in Myrick Park. The main group of 10-15 people had already hiked about 8 miles already. We had to wait in the park for quite a while, because the group was much later than anticipated. That was OK, though—there’s a really nice playground for the kids, called “Kid’s Coulee”.
When the main group arrived, they had a break & snacks (we joined them!). Then we set off on the remaining 5 mile section. Initially we hiked/biked on a trail through the marsh. That was really neat—my favorite part of the adventure—because a lot of ducks & geese had little ducks & geese right along the path. In fact, two families of geese were camped out on the path itself. When that path ran out, we hiked/biked along the road for a bit, then another path, then the road. We stayed with the main group almost all the way. That required us to pause, circle around, bike slowly, let them pass us, etc, because bikes are obviously much faster than walking. But it was fun. At times we felt like scouts on horseback—for example, one time Leon Madeux radioed his wife for a pick-up because his ankle was too sore too continue. Emily & I raced on ahead to try to spot her (unsuccessfully).
Leslie started having some difficulties, so we abandoned the main group for the last mile and just biked by ourselves the rest of the way. She was exhausted when we got to the church! The nice thing was that one of the ladies from the ward (Sr. Hilton) had arranged a picnic/barbecue to greet the trekkers, unbeknownst to us, so we had food waiting for us.
Earlier that morning I managed to score a really nice bike for Pauline at a garage sale. So we hope to do many more family bike adventures.
The other pioneer activity was a branch party at “Mormon Coulee Park” on Monday. We had a pot luck dinner, and the kids played for a long time. Leslie was fascinated by the creek that ran through the park—she just walked along and looked at things on its banks for about an hour, with me following along beside/behind in case she fell in. Neal Taylor took 10 minutes or so to relate some of the history of the Mormons in the area—early LDS from Nauvoo had come and made a temporary settlement here in the early 1840s. They floated white pine trees down the Mississippi for use in construction.
Last Saturday we had a “Pioneer Trek”, a 13 mile hike complete with a handcart that people pushed/pulled along. I didn’t think the kids would be quite up for that long of a hike, so we decided to join them half way and bike instead of walk. Leslie rode her own (gearless) bike, Emily rode behind me on the “trailer bike” that we bought a few weeks ago. Pauline ran some errands then drove the car to the church to meet us at the end.
Our part of the trek began in Myrick Park. The main group of 10-15 people had already hiked about 8 miles already. We had to wait in the park for quite a while, because the group was much later than anticipated. That was OK, though—there’s a really nice playground for the kids, called “Kid’s Coulee”.
When the main group arrived, they had a break & snacks (we joined them!). Then we set off on the remaining 5 mile section. Initially we hiked/biked on a trail through the marsh. That was really neat—my favorite part of the adventure—because a lot of ducks & geese had little ducks & geese right along the path. In fact, two families of geese were camped out on the path itself. When that path ran out, we hiked/biked along the road for a bit, then another path, then the road. We stayed with the main group almost all the way. That required us to pause, circle around, bike slowly, let them pass us, etc, because bikes are obviously much faster than walking. But it was fun. At times we felt like scouts on horseback—for example, one time Leon Madeux radioed his wife for a pick-up because his ankle was too sore too continue. Emily & I raced on ahead to try to spot her (unsuccessfully).
Leslie started having some difficulties, so we abandoned the main group for the last mile and just biked by ourselves the rest of the way. She was exhausted when we got to the church! The nice thing was that one of the ladies from the ward (Sr. Hilton) had arranged a picnic/barbecue to greet the trekkers, unbeknownst to us, so we had food waiting for us.
Earlier that morning I managed to score a really nice bike for Pauline at a garage sale. So we hope to do many more family bike adventures.
The other pioneer activity was a branch party at “Mormon Coulee Park” on Monday. We had a pot luck dinner, and the kids played for a long time. Leslie was fascinated by the creek that ran through the park—she just walked along and looked at things on its banks for about an hour, with me following along beside/behind in case she fell in. Neal Taylor took 10 minutes or so to relate some of the history of the Mormons in the area—early LDS from Nauvoo had come and made a temporary settlement here in the early 1840s. They floated white pine trees down the Mississippi for use in construction.
# posted by John Colton @ 9:05 AM 
