An Historical Family Trip

The Mormon Battalion Museum in San Diego was upgraded and recently reopened. We made a family outing out of the opening day. It was very crowded, so we didn’t see much of the museum itself, we’ll have to go back another time and take a better look, but there were a lot of activities that we did enjoy. As a little background here are some passages from the article linked above:

About 500 men enlisted in the Mormon Battalion, and about 80 women and children traveled with them. They began their journey in the sweltering heat of Council Bluffs, Iowa, on 20 July 1846, leaving their loved ones behind. The battalion completed one of the longest infantry marches in American history—about 2,000 miles (3,220 km) through what are now seven states and into Mexico…

[In the museum]“They will find out about the major contributions by the pioneer Latter-day Saints in the settling of the West. They were instrumental in building part of the transportation corridor from San Diego to Salt Lake City where Interstate 15 now runs. In 1847 San Diego’s first courthouse was built by members of the Mormon Battalion from bricks they had fired.”

I showed Emma all I know about panning for gold. We did find a few gold specks!

I forget what this game is called, but Hunter could keep this thing going for hours if he wanted to.

The girls all made pioneer baby dolls that were authentic to how they would have been made by the pioneers.

We were all given some biscuit dough to wrap around a spool of wood on the end of a stick. Then we held it over the coals for a while to bake.

Sabrina thought they were pretty good! Too bad we found out after we ate them that there was also hand churned butter and homemade jam to put on them. Oh well.

Hannah took a turn at washing some laundry with a bucket and washboard.

The extra pioneer activities were part of the reopening and are not offered on a regular day, so it was a special treat to experience some history!