Another Week in Paradise

Sometimes I am asked questions about our mission.  I will answer some of them here in case anyone else wonders.  Our tours last about 35-40 minutes.  We go in 5 different rooms with different videos and other things in each room.  We are only in the first room for a few minutes.  It is small and if we have a big group, we invite the kids to sit on the carpet in front.  This can mean kids of all ages.

In one room we dress up someone who volunteers (or just show them if no one volunteers) in the equipment a Battalion soldier in 1846 would wear.  This includes the ammo pouch, the bayonet strap, the belt to hold those in place, a hat (old fashioned sunscreen), a 3 pint wooden canteen, a food pouch that held beef jerky, beans and hardtack (hard tack lasts 50 YEARS), a pack with a bedroll, scriptures, a journal (there are 80 journals from members of the Battalion), and a 1816 flintlock musket that weighs about 10 pounds and was notoriously inaccurate.  They really were told to wait to shoot until they could see the whites of their enemy’s eyes.  Once the Mormon Battalion of 500 volunteer soldiers marched over 150 miles in 12 days to Fort Leavenworth, they received that equipment, but the army didn’t have enough uniforms.  They gave each of the men a $42 clothing allowance up front and they were able to wear their own clothes.  That was a miracle since the men were able to send the money back to their families in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to help with their move west.  The money they made as soldiers also helped a great deal.  About 80 women and children accompanied the Battalion.

Random picture I found of all the gear

                                                                                             

We end up in a room representing the first courthouse in San Diego, which the Battalion built using fired bricks.  Previously, buildings here were built using adobe brick, but the Battalion taught the Californios how to make fired brick, and even dug 20 wells for them and lined them with the fired bricks.  After the tour, we have a room with some interesting artifacts, including the actual cannon that the Battalion had.  There is also an old-timey looking camera to take a picture of your group, and then we go out to gold pan.  There are also hands-on displays of how bricks are made, a water pump, washboards like the laundresses used (the laundresses, who were wives of Battalion members, made 50 cents per soldier per month) and a tower where you can use binoculars to look out over Old Town.

That reminds me, I forgot to add pictures of Jeff and Genna gold panning last week!

Our director and his wife are also full-time missionaries.  Elder and Sister Barnes were called on a two year mission and started last January.  It turns out they used to live in Kansas City, MO, and knew David Barker’s dad.  David’s dad got Elder Barnes a job at the airlines many years ago.  Small world.

For our fun adventure of the week, we went on a 3 hour whale watching tour.  There are 3 kinds of whales migrating this time of year, but we only saw one kind.  We saw two sets of gray whales, a cow and a calf in each set.  They travel very slowly, less than 5 miles an hour, from Mexico to Alaska, as the cow feeds the calf and tries to keep it safe.  By seeing them, I mean we saw the water from their blowholes and the tops of their backs.  But that was cool.  One set had a bunch of dolphins swimming all around them.  That was cool, too.

This morning we had friends from Midway and Roseville come through the Battalion at different times.  Craig was able to take them on the tours.  A good time had by all!  It is such fun to see people we know come by.  Everyone is invited!