The Emigrant's Guide

Hooray. I finished the second book tonight. It had some interesting things in it that I didn't know. First of all, I found it extremely interesting that Thomas C. Durant was on his way to the celebration of the joining of the rails. He was one of the big guys for one of the rail road companies. When he got to the town of Piedmont the took him and held him hostage because the company had failed to pay the townspeople for their work. They didn't release him until the money was sent a few days later. This caused the Joining of the Rails celebration to be postponed from May 8 to May 10 1869.

I was also inspired by the story of the Edward Bunker Handcart company. You always here of all the hard things that many of them endured. This company had a man with one leg, 2 blind people, a person with one arm, and Ellenor Roberts left her shoes on the banks of the Misouri River and walked the 1,000 miles with bare feet. This must amazingly more difficult.

I also love William Clayton's description of Echo Canyon. I really like the canyon with all of it's beautiful rock formations and colors, but he described it as the most romantic spot he had ever seen before. I wonder if he had been introduced to polygamy at this spot. LOL. I also wondered which defenition of romantic he was talking about.

Finally I didn't know that it was at the top of Big Mountain that Brigham young recieved the revelation that the Salt Lake Valley was the right spot for them to stay and be safe.

One criticism of this book. I loved the pictures, but I found all the detailed explanations about the different rock formations boring. Maybe it is just me. My kids might like it if I had actual pictures to show them in the class with the name and the reason behind it.