It’s been quite an eventful week for us. Thursday, the 24th, was a big day in Utah. And nowhere else. Michael called me and said that he had a lady who was trying to close a loan up here and she couldn’t get a hold of anyone — broker, realtor, title, etc. She was apparently ranting on and on about how Utah thought it needed its own holiday in the middle of July. He said it was all he and the other Mormon folk could do to keep from laughing at her.
To do our part to celebrate, Julie asked me if I could stop by one of those places where you can buy fireworks. I was telling Michael about it. He was having a hard time comprehending the ability to go into some grocery store parking lot where they’ve got some big tent setup filled with nothing but fireworks. And I can relate. In Arizona, you’re feeling special if you hear of someone who has a sparkler. You just don’t do it down there. Here I could buy enough fireworks to blow up the local Wal-Mart. In any event, I guess I got a little carried away.
We’ve been toying with the idea all summer of going camping somewhere. Julie’s brother, Jim, had reservations up at Bear Lake at one of the campgrounds there. Somehow we got invited to go along, though I’m wondering if we sort of invited ourselves. A few days before we were to leave, they called us and said that they weren’t going to be able to make it. Then they called again the morning of and said that their friends that were also going weren’t going to make it either. So, with some reservation, wondering what they knew about the place that we didn’t, we headed north on Thursday night.
I decided that we were going to go the “back” way, since I figured that I15 going north was probably pretty busy. So we took a route that went up through Heber, over to Evanston, WY, through little towns in Utah called Randolph and Hyrum, to the south end of Bear Lake. It was beautiful country. The lake itself was a beautiful emerald blue. The landscape surrounding it, though, was a bit barren. Not many trees to be found. In any event, we didn’t have much time to take it all in that first night because there was a storm a-brewin’ and I needed to set up a new tent that I had never set up before. After only small amounts of panic, I managed to get the thing up and good. I admired my handywork the next day, noting that the thing was going absolutely nowhere.
Our first night went pretty well. For me, at least. Julie was tossing and turning all night, worrying that the girls were too cold or that we were all going to be eaten by bears or something. Somehow we made it through. After a gourmet breakfast of french toast and other goodies, we headed over to the lake. We had this 6 foot trampoline blow up thing that we were trying to balance our other stuff (including Gwenyth) on for the 1/4 mile or so trek to the beach. We must have looked like quite the circus, because 4 boy scouts came over and helped us carry all the stuff down to the beach. Once on the beach, I attempted to put together the shade canopy that I’ve probably put together 10 times before. It must have been downright comical to watch me do seemingly the same thing over and over again. I finally figured it out, after far too many 4 letter words.
After a little too much sun and plenty of fun, we decided to go get washed up (as much as possible while camping — though there were showers) and drive into town. “Town” is a small place called Garden City, right on the west edge of the lake. We stopped at one of the many shakes/burgers joints and had some great raspberry shakes. Apparently Raspberry Days is this coming week there. And it’s quite the big deal. So we missed out on the crowds, but still got the berries.
That night we built a campfire, cooked some tinfoil dinners and hot dogs, had some good grub, and then sat around the campfire and talked. The girls were reminiscing about their many memories from their long lives. It was a good time and I think the girls really enjoyed it.
The next day (Saturday) we decided that we were going to rent some Waverunners. It was going to be a little tricky, though, as we had to be checked out of our campsite by 2pm, I had to attempt to setup that canopy again, and we had to get down to the beach again. We found a way to get down to a different part of the beach — by car! So no drama getting our stuff down there. I went down to get a waverunner and we got the only one left, which ended up to be the best one they had. 180 some horsepower, goes 75 mph, etc. It was pretty fun. The girls were a little hesitant, especially Grace, but they all ended up enjoying it, especially Gwenyth :).
Somehow we made it back to the campsite, were able to scrounge together all of our stuff before the next people came through.
We decided to head back through Logan. Mostly because we didn’t want to come back yet. So we took our time heading back through the high country to Logan. Logan Canyon was beautiful. It wasn’t as far from Bear Lake to Logan as I was imagining. I think that the sign said 38 miles or something similar. Once we got there (and I woke everyone up), Julie decided that we should try and find the home she grew up in for a few years. Her brothers and sisters, especially, speak very fondly of their time in Logan. I think that a few of them will forever hold it against her parents that they moved.
We had to make a few calls back home to find out where we needed to go. I got a hold of Dave (Julie’s brother) and he was able to guide us there within a few minutes. Julie reminisced about her time there. She figured that she was probably just a bit older than Lucy when she left, but she has very vivid memories of it. We drove around and saw the old home, the old skating rink, the Bluebird restaurant, the tabernacle, the temple, parks, and other kinds of fun. It was a neat town.
We settled for the night in a very upscale Best Western, where we all had a very good night’s sleep. The next day we found this small zoo that the girls loved. The literature in the hotel said that it was free, but when we went there, we found that it was 50 cents per person. Well worth it.
On the way home, I15 North was completely closed around Ogden. The traffic must have been backed up for 6 miles. We were lucky that it was a straight shot home. All in all it was a good time.