Love Pedals, A True Story

Trek: Where it All Began- Day 1

Here we are. What did trek mean to me? Well, trek meant alot of things to me. Trek meant I was going to have to walk twelve miles in a day. Trek meant I was going to have a spiritual experience. Trek meant I was going to find my one true love, Taylor♡.

What is trek? Well, trek is a LDS program for teens ages 14-18 to go camp, basically. The "fun" part is, you are pretending to be a pioneer, a mormon pioneer. Back in the day, Mormons were forced from where they lived and forced to travel to other states or you were likely to be killed. The camp is for you to get a short feeling of what it was like being in that Era.

As soon as you get to the camp grounds, all we saw was Porta potties and a huge canal. The grass was kinda green, but it was the middle of summer and the sun was blazing. I was wearing stretch pants underneath my long dress, apron and heavy collared button down. All I had done to prepare for trek was sling my hair in a pony tail and ready myself for the upcoming experience.

After sitting around for like an hour talking with my friends, they announced they were going to place us in our "families". A family consisted of
1. A Ma and Pa (2 married adults)
2. A big brother and a big sister (people over the age of 18 who have done trek before, or wanted to participate)
3. The children. (Usually between 7 and 10 of them)

I was devestated when I was placed in a family where I knew no one. Not one of my friends or even acquaintances made it onto my family.

The first thing that your family was required to do, was to sit in a circle and get to know each other, while also comming up with a family team name. We settled on ♡Forever Strong♡ but we teased ourselves alot with the name The Leftover Lyndsays because we were the last family to be announced. When you entered camp, they don't tell you anything, absolutely everything is a secret: including who our family members were.

While we were sitting in the circle full of our family members, I was trying my hardest to learn names and see if I had any cute guys in my family. Yes, I was dating Justin while trek was going on, but there is no harm in looking. Me and him had been struggling so bad anyways, it didn't even feel wrong to do it. Taylor and I sat facing each other, not on purpose but we did.

I remember what I first thought when I was looking over my family and my eyes landed on Taylor. I thought: "Lol he looks like he's in pain, but he looks pretty cute in that farmers hat." He had a thin muscular build, he still does. That thin build that I liked so much, although I wasent used to it because Justin had a heavier build.

There were a few guys in my family.
1. My pa
2. Britt (big brother) on a side note, he's gorgeous.
3. Gavin (somone who Taylor bonded with, however he looked 10).
4. Kervins (somone I didn't get to know well).
5. Chandler ( Like from Friends♡.) He was older looking, but still had his baby face fat, he was decent looking. He looked thicker than Taylor and was taller and older.
6. Thomas, he is the sweetest kid in the world, and funny too. He wasent always a great help in pulling the hand cart, but he was great company.

Oh wow, I haven't even brought up the hand carts. Well, if you look at the media picture, you will see an exact replica of the carts we pulled at trek. They are very large carts, and all our our equitment and water jugs gets loaded onto it. We are givin rope and wooden poles, what we do with these is our own decision. We tied the rope and poles together to extend our cart, so more people could pull at one time.

Day one at trek: after we had sat in a circle and gotton to know each other, we loaded our families hand cart and attached our poles with string. As soon as we finished, I didn't realize it but, we would start walking. We started walking at about 10 AM. It was great that we didn't know how far we would be walking or for how long. We were the last in the line of carts. ( Hints: The Leftover Lyndsays) All carts moved at a very slow pace. Your feet would begin to ache. At times, a car or 2 would pass us and slow down real slow amd kinda stare. I wonder if they led themselves to believe we were Amish, or weirdos. We were pretty weird now that I think about it. Right before we started walking they fed us ( at around 9:30) they didn't feed us again after that. Lucky for my family, my Ma and Pa remembered to bring extra spring water. We were lucky for this because, everyone else had to drink solfur water while we drank spring. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and we ran out of spring water. Why is water so important? Well, me and Taylor would stand next to one another and, pull the cart, and talk. Of course there were other people around so we would watch our mouths but, we were always talking. He would always encouarge me to drink after his water bottle if i had run out of water. It wasent like that at first though. At first, we were quiet. We would take 10 or 15 minute breaks every 5 or 6 miles and at some point, one of us stroked a conversation and we hit it off from there. After that, whenever we had a break, we would run off with each other and go hide and talk. My favorite memory of when we had had a break, is when we were stopped in a real narrow path: the weeds were tall and we were all told to stay by our carts and not to wander off. Me and Taylor talked alot about relashionships, while we were sitting there. I felt like we were alone and close, emotionally. I felt even as if we were physically alone, well considering the fact I had only known him for a few hours. The rest of the days was trials and tribulations; however, here is the fun part. We stopped walking about midnight or 1. We stopped in a large Sandy area thay wasent base camp. We made it about 5 or 6 miles from base camp. They gave us broth and biscuits to calm our hungry bellies. I ate one biscuit because I was told I had to, I truly wasent hungery. It was a beautiful night, the stars were scattered everywhere. I kept wondering if Taylor would come and watch the stars with me. He was on my mind and, I couldn't figure out why, I would try to think about Justin, but Taylor would pop into my mind. We then we're told to make temporary tents our of tarp or lay a tarp to sleep on. With it being such a nice night, we rough it would be smart to sleep under the stars. All I wanted was to sleep next to taylor and I still didn't understand these feelings. However, it began to rain. Hard. I was crying, oh boy was I balling. I kept saying I wamted my mom, like I was 2 or somthing. But, that's not really whay I wanted. I wanted Taylor to comfort me, this was again, feelings I didn't understand. I didn't understand anything. All I understood was thay I wamted taylor with me, to hold me. Justin barely crossed my mind. I wanted somone who had made me feel safe when I was going through such a hard time. Doing the hardest thing I've ever done.