Heritage Gateways

Wendy Westergard Journals

May 7, 1997

Location: Kearney - 810 miles left, Nebraska - Location: 40:41:58N 99:04:52W Elevation: 2150 feet

Summary: On the train today.

Journal entry: Greetings from the Great Plains of Nebraska!!!!
We started out much later than usual. 10 o'clock because we met the south train in Kearney. We didn't get to sleep in because we were packing up camp. We had corn meal mush for breakfast. Yuck!!!!

Today I rode on the Canadian's wagon. We squashed about 7 people into the back of the wagon. It was very hot, yet relaxing. The first part was awesome because the back of the wagon was filled with young people. After the first break it switched to a bunch of little kids. It felt as though we were traveling as a family moving west. It seemed to make the fantasy of a whole family moving west seem more of something more tangible than a dream.

During lunch break we had an accident. A little girl named Sarah was between wagons. Our wagon started backing up and she didn't notice. The wagon in the back was staying put. It all happened so quickly. Sarah was squashed between the two wagons. She was more scared than anything. She only ended up with a small scrape on her temple. We were lucky, it could have been much worse.

After lunch Amy Proud, me, Orin, and Christina were in the back and we fell asleep. Steve Sorenson and Jared Cornell joked all day about how we looked like cholera invalids. We had put our arms over our eyes. They teased us about it for the rest of the night.

When we arrived in camp we set up camp. Everyone had lots of energy we got camp set up camp fast. It was great. We even had extra help. Heber Dew helped us and he is mister energy.

There was a dance that night. We did the Virginia Rail and a couple of other dances. It was great. We got a lot of people involved from the crowd. Even our mountain men from the south train.