Bear Lake

A couple weeks ago on one of Bobby's days off we decided to check out Logan canyon. Everyone kept telling us how beautiful it was and since it's less than a 5 min. drive from our house we thought it'd be fun to pack a lunch and have a picnic in the canyon. As we began driving through the canyon the only thing we were really paying attention to was the scenery because it is absolutely gorgeous! I figured we'd see some sort of big parking lot off to one side of the road where there would be picnic tables and a big grassy area to play in so there's no way would miss it. As we wandered farther and farther into the canyon I wasn't worried that we'd NEVER come out! Now you have to understand that the Provo canyon is about a 20 min. drive from start to finish so we just assumed this would be the same. After we'd been driving for 30 min. with NO sign of any picnic areas or ending of the canyon we thought maybe we should just turn around. It was close to Tyler's nap time and he had fallen asleep in the back so we figured that while we had a little peace and were enjoying our beautiful drive we might as well keep going and see everything. We pulled out our lunches and ate them in the car while I checked out where we were on our Atlas. I was hoping that it would tell us how long the canyon was to see if we were anywhere near the end. Turns out that we were only about another 20 miles from Bear Lake. Apparently the canyon takes you straight from Logan to Garden City (the city where Bear Lake is). Since we'd both heard of it but never been, we decided to drive the next several miles and check it out. Bear Lake is a HUGE lake that is cut in the middle by the UT/ ID border so it is at the very most northern part of the state. As soon as we pulled into Garden City Tyler woke up so we thought it would be fun to check out the city and the Lake. The city is pretty much just a big tourist area so there are bed and breakfast's, inn's, camping grounds, shops and hamburger shacks everywhere. It's one of those places that's just super low key where everyone's walking around in their bathing suits or riding bikes in the streets. We kept seeing signs that said the city was famous for their raspberries: raspberry shakes, raspberry jam, raspberry syrup, etc., so we stopped at one of the hamburger places and shared a raspberry shake that was delicious!! Then it was onto the lake.

We drove around and found lots of places that wanted to charge you to drive onto the beach but since we didn't have bathing suits (Yea, I was wearing jeans-so hot!) or anything and weren't planning on staying we didn't want to pay to go onto the beach. We really just wanted to drive up closer to the water to see if it was a "clean" lake or not. After we drove around the lake for a LONG time and got farther outside of the city we finally found a place that didn't charge and it wasn't crowded at all so we pulled up and got out. We were so surprised at how clean the water AND the beach were. The beach has soft, white sand and the water is actually somewhat clear. Apparently this lake has some sort of mineral in the water that gives it the "aqua-blue" appearance that it has. (I don't know, I read it in one of the brochures we picked up) Anyway, since it wasn't crowded we decided to get out of the car and walk around the beach for a little bit; maybe see if Tyler was at all interested in the water. Holy cow, that kid RAN straight for the water and didn't stop once he got there. I barely had enough time to strip his shoes and shirt off before he soaked everything. Thankfully I keep sunscreen and an extra pair of clothes for Tyler in the diaper bag or we would have had a pretty miserable drive home. He liked holding onto Bobby's hand so that Bobby would take him farther and farther out into the water but if Bobby turned him around to walk back because it was getting too deep he would just let go and keep walking by himself. We ended up staying and playing in the water for over an hour and Tyler screamed his little head off when it was time to go. To say he LOVED it would be an understatement! I'm just so mad I didn't have my camera! We had so much fun that we decided to spend the whole day the next week up at the Lake. But why is it than when you make plans for something it never turns out, but when you do something spontaneously it's the best day ever?!

The next week when we went up and had of course packed a whole cooler of food and snacks, our bathing suits, towels, and I had my camera it was really overcast and windy so the water was freezing and we couldn't swim! It was okay because we bought some beach toys and just played in the sand most of the day and since it was cloudy we didn't have to worry about being hot, but we're going to make the trip again sometime when we check the weather before hand (leave it to us to just assume the weather is always on our side!) so that it will be a nice day and we can play in the water. Since I did bring my camera the second time here are a few pictures from our trip.