Bear Lake Trip

I can't remember where we discovered the notion but from early on in Wendy's pregnancy we decided that sometime during the later end of the pregnancy we were going to take a "babymoon." Basically the idea is you are taking a last vacation before your first baby comes.

At various times we had grand plans to go to California, Washington D.C., southern Utah, New Mexico, or even just Crystal Hot Springs. Something always came up to prevent us from actually planning out the trip. Eventually it came down to the fact that we basically we're running out of time before Wendy became a little bit too pregnant to go places. Out of desperation more than planning we ended up going on a short day trip to Bear Lake. We enjoyed ourselves.

The lake itself was super high; about as high as I can ever remember seeing it. So high in fact that a bunch of trees were buried fairly deeply into the water. Little to no shoreline was present.

Drowning Trees

It did make taking pictures of each other with the shoreline behind us relatively easy. We didn't have to go too far from the road. Unlike in years past when you had to hike five minutes to the water.

The short shoreline also made the time honored tradition of skipping or throwing rocks easier. I taught Wendy the theory behind rock skipping. I think she even succeeded once or twice.

Wendy skipping rocks

Ben skipping rocks

The summer I was fifteen years old I worked at the Bear Lake Aquatics camp on the eastern shore. I decided to show Wendy the place. The high shoreline significantly changed the geography of the scout camp. When I was there I taught the nature merit badge. Even though it's a required merit badge it is not a glamorous one such as the waterfront, archery, or shooting merit badges. As such my teaching area was basically the area that was in middle of nowhere. Fast forward a "couple" of years and suddenly my middle of nowhere nature merit badge site is only a couple dozen yards away from the shoreline and part of the waterfront.

Nature merit badge teaching site

The scout tent frame that I shared with another staff member for a summer

Even though it was early May we packed out swimsuits. As it turned out his was slightly ambitious. It appears that Bear Lake is rather chilly that early in the year. Not that great for swimming activities. Wendy didn't even try to get into the water. I, being the tough man that I am, made it to wading before giving up. I tell myself that it was really cold and not that I'm turning into a wimp in my old age.

This is as far as I made it into the water

While I was attempting to wade in the lake Wendy took advantage of the opportunity to reconnect with her family members. We wouldn't want them to lose track of her on our long vacation now would we?

Wendy at Bear Lake and on the phone

No trip to Bear Lake is complete without a trip to the local burger joints for a hamburger, fries, and a Bear Lake raspberry shake. This early in the year we weren't sure if any of the places would be open or not. Fortunately when we arrived at the location we found that not only was it open it was fairly busy.  I expressed my surprise at the amount of people to the kid taking orders. His response, "Yea, this is more than we expected. This is our first day open." Guess we timed our trip fairly close. One day earlier and no raspberry shakes and that would be tragic.

Outside the burger joint

Yea for burgers

Wendy eating