Journey Cake

Here's a cake recipe you can take on your next covered wagon trip since the ingredients won't go bad:

1. Mix together 1 1/2 c sugar, 3/4 c butter, 1 3/4 c apple cider, 4 1/2 c flour and 1 tsp each of baking soda, cinnamon cloves.
2. Adjust apple cider as needed for consistency.
3. Bake at 350 until brown, about 50 mins in a 9x13" pan.
4. For sauce you can cream 1/2 c butter and 1 c brown sugar, add a little nutmeg; then spread on cake.

This cake smells wonderful cooking, and tastes great too!

This was our take away from yesterday's school field trip to Hiwan Homestead Museum. We saw pics on pioneers walking beside covered wagons coming from St Louis to Colorado. The kids walked beside the wagon and didn't have shoes on so they would have them we they arrived. The wagons were small and held all the belonging a family could take. They were leaving a populated area to come to a wilderness where supplies would not be available except from the occasional vendor that passed through selling his wares, or during the once a year trip to a trading post for supplies.

I have a hard time making it a week without heading to the store; the thought of being used to having supplies and suddenly having to "make do" gave me plenty to think about. Seeing kids walking all day, collecting buffalo chips for fires, and helping with chores I checked the faces of the kids in our group, they couldn't imagine what it would have been like. I wondered how many adults that signed up for the journey back then did either-- until they were on their way.