Oh Bear Lake, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.....
I have seriously been anticipating this trip since I was pregnant last summer. We've had our cabin reservations made since last year. And nothing was going to stop us, not even the weather.
Day 1 was good. We took the scenic route through Evanston to avoid Salt Lake traffic, and that was an excellent choice. Such a gorgeous drive. We made it to the KOA around 4:30, and didn't hear from anyone in Aaron's family, so we took the kids swimming at the camp ground pool. They had a deeper pool and a wading pool for Ruby and Cal sized kids, so everyone was happy.
Then Aaron's family got in touch, so we drove over to their A-frame cabin and cooked our dinner over there. Sloppy Joes cooked in a skillet over a fire, and it worked fabulously. And it was so, so easy. I just mixed together all the ingredients for the sauce at home and put them in a plastic baggy. First we browned the hamburger in our cast iron skillet over the fire, then I just dumped the sauce baggy out on top and we stirred for a bit until it was the right consistency and we were good to go. I'm going to keep that one on my list of easy foods to prepare while camping list.
The kids got to do a little kayaking and swimming, and since we already had a fire we had S'mores for dessert.
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| Lincoln, Ivan, and Aaron |
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| My handsome Linc, how is he almost 10 already?! |
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| Aneya, Krystal, and Cal. We were comparing eye color. |
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| Claire and Adelia. Del enjoyed the kayak way more than I thought she would, and she was able to get around really well. |
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| Ruby, Sam, and Ollie were too little to Kayak, so the just ambushed everyone coming back to shore. |
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| Cal eating his graham cracker and making funny faces for Audrey. |
I'm not a very "relaxed" vacationer. I can only sit around vegging for so long. So when we go on any trip, we usually plan out a bunch of possible things we'd like to go do, we keep it flexible, and if we're with other families we totally invite them to come with if they want, but then at least that way if nothing is going on, we have a back up plan. Or, as was the case several days on this trip, if it's too cold to play in the lake, you have a backup plan.
Today our plan was Minnetonka Cave. I've been to Bear Lake a dozen times, but I've never been to the cave before. It's an awesome cave....if you have a chance definitely go, and if you have a choice, definitely don't take your 2 year old. *rolls eyes*
Rue was having a moment, or several. I was carrying Cal through the cave, and Aaron was supposed to be Rue's buddy. But she didn't want Aaron to be her buddy, she wanted me. So I switched Aaron and gave him Cal and took Rue; except at that point Rue didn't want me....she wanted Aaron. Turns out she really just wanted to be with whomever was holding Cal.
She did OK for a little bit with me carrying her as a dead weight in my arms. But then at the very back of the cave (like 45 minutes in) the tour guide turned off the lights so everyone could see how dark it really is in a cave, and Rue freaked. She started shrieking and wailing and flailing. So bad, that our guide gave me permission to walk out with her ahead of the group. And she kicked and screamed the entire time. I'm talking kicked and screamed like both her shoes and one of her socks went flying. People, there are 444 stairs to you have to go up to get out of the cave four HUNDRED and forty-four. Have you ever dragged a raging mad two year old up 444 stairs. Yikes. We got to the Suburban and I literally strapped her into her car seat and sat there and drank a Pepsi. Holy buckets, if I survive this child.....
The cave was so cool though. When the tour guide turned off the lights, he let anyone that wanted to try to find their way along the path for a ways in the pitch black (holding onto a railing). The kids were stoked. They thought it was the neatest thing ever. We also saw several real live bats, that was pretty cool too. And some awesome cave formations. I like caves. They feel like an adventure.
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| The trail leading down to the cave |
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| Adelia and Claire waiting at the cave entrance |
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| Sam, Lincoln, Ivan, and Bennett with a caterpillar they found |
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| Lincoln, Bennett, Jeremiah, and Chad waiting to go inside the cave. |
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| Me and a happy baby Cal. This was before I hauled Ruby out. |
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| Chad, Carter holding Sam, Rob, Chuck, Jared holding Ollie, Claire, Stacey, Adelia, Audrey, Ivan, Lisa, Aneya, Jeremiah, Bennett, Spencer, Krystal holding Ruby, Lincoln, Aaron holding Cal, Ryan holding Ilo in the baby sling (you can't see Ilo but he's there), and Melissa |
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| Stairs for dayssssssss |
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| Rue back at the car, still throwing a fit. Honestly, I think she was probably just hangry. |
After the cave we went back to the KOA and Cal had a nap (no luck on Rue napping). Then we went back to the A-frame for a family pot-luck dinner. For our contribution we did cornmeal ranch fried chicken and fresh zucchini from our garden over the fire. Super easy (because you prepare it before the trip and keep it in a ziplock baggy until needed) and SOOOOO tasty.
Some of the kids put together a fireside devotional, and then afterwards we roasted mallows and sang songs. Adelia tried her hand at playing the guitar, and as I was sitting there watching her strum away, I got a very clear impression that guitar would be a really, really good fit for her. I'm going to have to look into that some more. I've been having lots of little parenting ah-ha's concerning Del lately, I'll have to do another post about that another time. But I love how we get direction as parents that is so specific to each individual child.
Day 3 - Bloomington Lake Hike
Everyone went to bed and slept really well on night 2, probably largely due to being tired, but maybe a small bit to do with me hooking up our large speaker and playing them an audiobook off my Kindle while they laid in bed.
Day 3 was probably my favorite of our trip. Today we hiked the trail to Bloomington Lake. It's a super easy and fairly short hike with gorgeous scenery, and it leads to a lovely little lake with a rope swing on one end and some great cliffs for cliff jumping on the other end. It's about a 45 minute drive on a dirt road up to the trail head, but it's a beautiful drive and not too bumpy.
When I hiked this trail with my mom and stepdad four years ago, the parking lot at the trail head was packed and cars were parked off the side of the road as well. This morning when we drove in the parking lot was empty. That should have been our first clue. Haha!
Our second clue should have been the large pile of snow at the far end of the parking lot. And our third clue should have been that the bathrooms were locked.
However, we did not take a clue.
And we were actually surprised when we got to the lake, to find that it was still half frozen over, and that snow was covering all the cliffs. Haha! I mean it's almost July for goodness sakes, you just don't expect ice and snow.
Apparently we weren't the only ones either, because a few minutes behind us, a big family reunion came up the trail with swim suits and towels. They were braver than us, and immediately began using the rope swing.
Originally, we'd decided that it was too cold to get in the water. I told them about being in college and jumping off the dock at Utah Lake at 2AM in February while it was snowing. And how the first jump was fine, but when I jumped in the second time my muscles were so shocked from the cold that I couldn't lift myself back onto the dock, and my friends had to pull me out. Of course this registered with my kids not at all. My older two kept begging to try the swing. And begging, and begging. So after watching the first group swing for awhile, and noticing that they were making it out ok and not getting hypothermia, I agreed to let Linc and Ivan try the rope swing as long as Aaron was willing to stand by and rescue them if their muscles seized up and they couldn't swim back to shore. Aaron agreed that they could go off of it one time each. Aaron's mom and siblings pretty much thought we were nuts. :)
Ivan went off first, and then Lincoln, and then Aaron did too. And then my brave little Adelia decided that she wanted to go. Cal and I filmed the whole thing, and it was probably my favorite part of the whole trip because it was crazy and adventurous. No one wanted to jump in a second time either, so I think they all finally believe me now about what happens to your body when it gets too cold.
We got back to the car just ahead of a big thunder storm, and got out of the mountains and onto a paved road just before it started raining. It was windy and cold the rest of the day, so we couldn't do any kayaking or swimming at Bear Lake. We hung out at the A-frame for awhile, but there wasn't a lot of space with everyone inside, and our kids got cranky, and it was nap time for Ruby and Cal, so we headed out.
That night we bought dinner in Garden City, hamburgers and fries and famous raspberry shakes. Yum! We hung out at the KOA for awhile while Cal napped. The kids played life size chess and checkers, and played around on the playground and the jumping pad. We went back to the A-frame for a fire and s'mores, and to load up the kayaks.
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| Bloomington Lake is so beautiful, even half frozen over and covered in snow. |
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| Ruby was a great hiker. |
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| This is a very small lake that you pass on the way to Bloomington Lake. |
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| Cal was being such a cheeser whenever anyone pulled out a camera. |
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| We spent most of our time there throwing rocks into the lake, trying to break holes into the ice. |
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| Aaron, Debbie, Lisa, and Stacey |
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| Aaron had to wade in and fetch the rope swing. |
Because of all the snow and rain this year, Bear Lake is higher than I've ever seen it. And that means that very few of the beaches have sand. The one at the A-frame did not. So on our last day, after we packed up the Suburban and checked out of the KOA, we went in search of sand. We found it at North Beach.
Ahhhhhhh.......finally! Sand to occupy the kids. Holes were dug, sand castles were build, shells were collected. The works. This is what I had expected the majority of the vacation to be like, playing on the beach. I'm glad we got to do it for the last day.
We also kayaked a bit, but it was really windy and not super warm, around 68 degrees. So mostly we just enjoyed the sand. After a few hours we loaded up the car and headed home. See ya next time Bear Lake!
