I made it!!

(From the Tri- city herald)

The 19th century Mormon pioneers who ventured west pulling their possessions in handcarts didn't have duct tape to fix holes in their shoes.
But that didn't keep Kevin Fairchild from using some Wednesday morning to patch up his battered hiking boot.
It came apart while he and 170 other teens from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints trekked through farmland south of the Tri-Cities to re-enact the journey their ancestors took to find religious freedom.
The students are from the Kennewick East Stake. They hiked 12 miles Tuesday and covered more ground Wednesday. When they finish Friday, they'll have traveled about 21 miles on foot, lugging handcarts filled with their clothes, sleeping bags and Dutch ovens they used to cook their food.
"It was long and very hard," said Fairchild, 18, of his first day on the trail. But he wasn't complaining.
Several teens said the sweat and blisters helped them appreciate what the pioneers faced on their trip. About 70,000 came to the Salt Lake Valley by horseback or covered wagon and another 3,000 traveled using handcarts, the church website said.
The first group of pioneers arrived in the summer of 1847. It's a tradition for Mormon youth to re-enact the journey through treks of their own in the summertime.
The Kennewick teens tried to do it right.
"All the kids are in period dress as (best) we could figure. As much as we can, we try to rough it. We try to be as authentic as we can," said Rees Magleby, trail boss.
The girls in the group made their own aprons and bonnets, and some of them also sewed the long skirts or dresses they wore. The boys had loose trousers and button-down shirts. Some of them used straw hats with wide brims to shield their eyes from the sun.
Each teen carried a tin cup for drinking water because no plastic bottles were allowed. Some of them had leather strips on their wrists with the name of an ancestor who'd made the journey more than 160 years before.
At night, the kids sacked out in sleeping bags under the stars.
They traveled together in a caravan of handcarts over the rolling hills. The kids were divided into "families" of about nine people, with at least two adult chaperones, a "Ma" and "Pa." Each of the families had a cart.
They all were pushed together in a circle at camp Wednesday morning, and the kids worked to pack them up before starting out for the day. They looked tired but seemed in good spirits, even after nine hours of walking the day before.
"It was dusty," said Aaron Smith, 15.
"Going up the hill was kind of difficult," added Michelle Mace, 16.
"Our teeth were getting caked with dust," said Micah Leavitt, 18. "(But) it was to commemorate the pioneers and better appreciate what they went through."
The trail boss asked the group to gather for a prayer. He praised the teens' hard work and told them to keep it up. Then he sent them back on the trail.
There was sagebrush for miles, interrupted by circles of potatoes, corn and wheat. The caravan moved at a steady clip up the first of the day's hills.
One of the carts had a large American flag on it.
The kids talked, laughed and even sang as they trudged along.
"It's hard but it's worth it," said Ami Stephens, 15, as she took a shift pushing her cart from the back. "I like how we all work together."
The teens only were going to travel a few miles Wednesday and then spend time unwinding with a hoe-down and pioneer games. Even that was in keeping with the pioneer spirit, said Lisa Killian, an activities coordinator for the trip.
"The pioneers did have fun," she said. "They danced, they sang, they baked pies. It's amazing what they accomplished."
The youth trek is expected to wrap up Friday near Plymouth. Elizabeth Scott, 18, said she won't soon forget the days she spent reliving the history of her faith.
"I knew it was going to a really great experience," she said as the caravan took a short break in the morning sun. "I always wanted to be a pioneer."
pictures are at:http://www.tri-cityherald.com/901/story/258613.html