Wagon Train

150 years ago the Mormon Pioneers came to Washington County in the Dixie Cotton Mission. To commemorate this event, the City of St. George and Washington County put on an 8 day 100 mile Wagon Train trek from Parowan to St. George. My mom participated in the full 8 day trek and Russell and I and our family participated in the final day October 15.

In order to participate, we had to dress like the pioneers. I made Emily and me matching bonnets, skirts, and aprons and I made Colby a floppy little felt hat to go with his overalls. Russell slapped on his cowboy hat and borrowed his dad's cowboy shirt and he was set too. On Saturday the 15th, we met up with the Wagon Train in Ivins and travelled on into St. George. Lacie, and Clay's kids, Chelsie, Cassie, Braden and Jason, also joined us and my mom on the trek. Lacie had been on the trek with my mom since Wednesday. My great-great grandparents (I think that is how many greats they were) came in the Dixie Cotton Mission to settle Washington County. My mom made signs for the Cannon's, Burgess' and Rogers' to place on our wagon and let everyone know who we were representing.

We had originally planned to walk to St. George, but my mom said there was room on the wagon so we could ride.

The ride was so much fun and so much better than walking! I was glad the wagon master let us ride with him. As we rode, people were standing near the road watching us and waving like we were a parade. But then again I guess we were a parade. Doesn't Colby look so cute in his hat?

Russell got tired of riding on the wagon so he jumped on a horse:

One of the out riders was just hauling a second horse so jokingly Russell said "Hey do you want me to ride horse?" He was shocked when the guy said, "Yeah get on." Russell said "Really?!" and jumped off the wagon to get on the horse. He rode the horse the whole way and acted like our out rider. He had a blast. Ever since he went horse back riding with the Young Men, Russell has loved riding horses.

The wagon train was quite big. It probably consisted of 30 wagons, a bunch of handcarts, and about 300 people. Along the trail, the towns they passed through or stopped at provided food to feed all of the members of the wagon train so that they didn't have to haul a lot of food. These pictures were taken as the wagons came down the hill from Ivins into Santa Clara. We went through Santa Clara and had another mini parade as we waved to the onlookers. Then we headed for St. George on Sunset Boulevard. This was really interesting because there were a lot of cars passing us.

When we left Ivins, one of the handcart people had been left behind so he rode on the back of our wagon and held his handcart as we drove. As we were stopped on Sunset Blvd, the horses on our wagon got anxious and started going in reverse. This caused the wagon to jack knife with the handcart and luckily Lacie was able to secure the brake on the wagon in time. As the wagon hit the handcart, the guy's hand that was holding the handcart got stuck in the rope. If Lacie hadn't secured the brake, the wagon would have continued to go backwards and the guy's hand and arm would have been broken. It was pretty scary. We got the handcart and the wagon apart and continued. The police had to block the traffic going both ways so that we could cross the road safely.

This is a picture of our Wagon Master, Tennessee. His real name is John but everyone calls him Tennessee because he was originally from Tennessee. He was a really nice guy and my mom said he took really good care of her during the trek. He was also really nice in that he let us ride on his wagon for free. Tennessee had two wagons in the train. The one in the picture above was the one he drove. It was pulled by two Missourian Mules. These mules were HUGE! They stood 19 hands high and towered over the other horses and mules.

This is Tennessee's other wagon. This was the one we actually rode in during the trek. It was driven by Tennessee's wife, Kim. She was also really nice and very friendly. While traveling in St. George, on of the head guys kept telling Russell and the other out riders to get in the back of the train and not by their wagon. This was making Russell mad so he asked Kim why he couldn't ride by the wagon. She told him to tell the guy that he was this wagon's out rider and he needed to stay here to help control the wagon's horses. When Russell told this to the head guy, the guy said "Oh okay you better stay up here then" and he never bothered Russell again.

As we came into St. George, our Wagon Train became a Pioneer Parade through town. I took these pictures off of the Spectrum newspaper website. If you look really close on the second picture, you can see me in the back of the last wagon and Russell riding the horse next to it. The first picture is of my Uncle Frank's two wagons.

The parade ended at the Vernon Worthen park and the Sun Bowl. Jared, Jacob, Justin, Cambree, Drew, and Chrislyn also joined us on the wagon for the parade. It was a lot of fun being in the parade waving to everyone. Colby loved standing on the seat looking out over the edge. He would stand there as I held him and wave and clap his hands at everyone. Emily also loved being in the parade but she was really tired. She had been looking forward the parade for the last few days. I think the parade was a little hard for her though because we had to get up at 6 am in order to be there at 7 am to start the trek. That was a little too early for Emily and she was so tired riding on the wagon that she didn't really care to wave at the people.

After the parade, we all gathered for a fun family shot of everyone that rode in the parade from our family.

One great thing that did happen along the trail was that my mom and her brother, Frank (pictured above) started talking again. A major family feud over 15 years ago caused a big rift in my mom's family. Since then, she and Frank have not spoken to each other. When my mom found out that Frank was going on the trek with her, my dad encouraged her to call him and see if she could ride with him in his wagon. My mom did call but was told to never call him again. So my mom apologized and hung up. Then on Monday of the trek, Frank came up to my mom and to her surprise started talking to her! She was shocked and happy at the same time. Since then, they talked every night and have become a little closer. Frank even let some of the grand kids ride with him on his wagon. When the trek was over, Frank told my mom that they needed to do more things together and my mom agreed that would be a good idea. So we will see what happens but my mom said that if anything, she was meant to go on this trek so she and Frank could start talking again. It literally made her whole trip.

After the trek and parade, we had lunch in the park and enjoyed all of the festivities. While we were eating our lunch, a big flock of seagulls flew over our heads. This is kind of a bad picture but all those white dots are seagulls. I thought this was cool because the seagull is our state bird and they helped the pioneers with the major cricket problem they had.

At the park, there was a list of all of the original pioneers of the Dixie Cotton Mission. Here are my ancestors, William Burgess, and David H. Cannon. While we were looking at these names, we had our picture take by a professional. She will be emailing me the picture but I haven't got it yet so I will just make a new post when I get it.

Also at the park were the mountain men. Jason's favorite animal is a skunk. (Don't ask me why...) As he was walking through the mountain men's pelts, he found a skunk pelt and had to have it! It was so funny seeing him walk around with a skunk pelt on his shoulder. Then one of the mountain men showed us his skunk hat. Instead of a Coon skinned hat, he had a Shunk skinned hat. Jason wanted it!

We finally made it home around 4:00. Emily fell asleep on the way home and slept until 6:00; she was so tired. After a hot day, Colby and I enjoyed an Otter Pop. Colby loves those things and gets so excited when I bring one out of the freezer.

That night the city had a big firework show to end the Wagon Train trek. We watched it from near the old airport and had a perfect view. Emily loved the firework and told me every shape and color that they made. She also loves the pioneer skirt and, as you can see, wouldn't take it off.

We had a lot of fun participating in the Wagon Train. We were wishing that we could have participated in more that just one day. I wanted to go with my mom for the whole week but I didn't have anyone to watch Emily and I needed to be home for Colby. We want to do another trek though someday.