The sun came up bright and hot this morning, the same as it has for several days. The farmers are still running their irrigation systems with no rain in sight. It seems to be that way for a lot of the country. Many areas have had to much rain and others not enough.

Close by is the Loop river which is a fair sized river that runs through Genoa and several other towns. On the south side of the river is an area where they run their 4 wheelers, dirt bikes, etc. They park their travel trailers along the side of the road and in a couple of areas away from the road, but everything is either gravel or dirt. This time of year it is all dust, everywhere. There are small ponds that they use for swimming and cooling off. As you can see, there are all kinds of trailers, even some with custom paint jobs.

In an area close by, when they have the hay mowed, you can see depressions in the earth where the Mormons traveled from Illinois to Salt Lake many years ago. They apparently followed the Platte River valley as much as they could and there are maps showing where they went.

There is a plaque showing their route as well as an idea of what one of the wagon trains looked like. There was even a time when they used hand carts to move their belongings. There would be 5 men to the cart, some pulling and some pushing.

What a hard time they had and what a difficult way to travel. But they had a purpose and that was to get to Salt Lake to be with the rest of their people to live and believe what they wanted.

We drove part of the road route that is marked along the path they took, but certainly not the 1600+ miles they traveled. It would be nice to take the time to travel and study the places they had along the route.