Bear Lake

I was up early Sunday morning, a little before it got light, about five.  With my head lamp, I did all the watering in the greenhouses.  With Carol's help, I began the job of loading our car with our tents, blankets, cooking stove, etc.  We were completely loaded by seven.  We had a little breakfast.  I forgot the hanging baskets in the front yard.  I then did it. 

We left a little after eight this morning for Layton, Utah.  Skyler Gray, our grandson,  reported his mission in the Weaver second ward. We arrived at the ward house about 10:40.  We were the first ones there.  We set partway to the front.  It wasn't long until other family members began to come.  Some we did not see until after the meeting because they were close to being late of were late.

Skyler was the first adult speaker, and did a good job.  Eric Gray, his father and our son-in-law was the other speaker.  He is on the high council.  He Did a good job.  Afterwards, we had a luncheon at their home.  Eric and Lisa had put up a lot of shade tents.  There was a lot of good food.  Carol made some Frog-eye-salad.  The open house lasted for over two hours.

We took Elizabeth with us.  It was really crowded.  I set in the back and Elizabeth was in the front.  Skyler made a map for us with the directions on how to get there.  We drove to Brigham, then to Logan, and the rest of the way through Logan Canyon.  That was one winding road.  We bought gas in Logan.

The was a big fire near Lake Town.  We could not see the Bear Lake because of the smoke. 

We finally arrived.  It seemed like we would never get there.  We drove past our campsite, and had to turn around.  As soon as we got there we began to unload.  Melissa and Derick were already there.  We hadn't put up our tent for a long time.  We could not remember, but finally got it nearly up.  In the meantime, Derick and Melissa were trying to get there tent up.  They bought them a new tent.  We stopped working on our tent and helped them put up their tent.  We then tried to get our tent up.  Several pieces were missing, but after trying many different ways we got our tent up.

Our dinner for the night was tin foil dinners.  We got a fire started to make the coals.  We then made our foil dinners.  They were filled with sliced onion and carrots and potatoes and hamburger.  Lisa's kids showed up about then.  Their dinners were prepared at home.  By now the coals were good.  The tin foil dinners were cooking and just needed a little more time.   They were pretty good.

I filled the mattress with air using the battery powered blower.  It worked well.  We made the bed ready for the night.  The park host told us that there were skunks in the area and we were to keep out tents closed and food would be kept skunk proof containers.  Any garbage should be kept in the car during the night. 

It was about 10:30 when we went to bed.  I slept pretty good and woke up at five to go to the bathroom.  The bath rooms were really nice.  Clean flush toilets, warm water, and a place to have a warm shower.  I came back to bed and got up when it began to get light. 

We had a bacon, eggs, and pancake breakfast.  Elizabeth did all the cooking, and there was plenty to eat.  The rest of the day was a day of doing nothing.  It was a pleasure to be able to do nothing.  But really there were some things that I did.

• Skyler found sort of diftwood walking stick.  It was weathered drift wood from the lake.  The branches had broken off.  Skyler tried to cut them off with a pocket knife.  I had a small hand saw I let him use.  He had no idea how to use it.  I showed him how, and he still struggled to make it work right.  He pushed down hard on the saw and the same time was pushing the saw forward.  I then got my prunners and that made it a lot easier.  He then wanted to carve it.  Both ends of the stick had broken leaving splintered end.  I told him that he should saw the end off. 
• This started a new activity.  I suggested that we should have some competition in how fast it would be cut off.  Skyler did it a little over eight seconds.  Chase did it in a little over nine seconds.  Emily took the longest which was about 1 1/2 minutes.  I did it in less than eight seconds.
• Later in the day we took chairs out on the beach.  The kids played in the sand and water.
• Eric and Lisa came.  They put up their tents. 
• Dinner for the night was dutch oven cooking.  It contained chicken thighs, potatoes, onions, carrots, and cream of chicken soup.  It was very good.

The night was not as comfortable as the night before.  I got up twice during the night.  Once at two and again at five. 

We had the same breakfast again this morning.  Pancakes, bacon, and eggs were prepared again by Elizabeth.  As soon as breakfast was over we began to load our car.  We had a little more room in the car because of the wood and food that we brought which we didn't bring back.   We also put our tent in the dumpster.  We cleaned our campsite and said our good-byes.

I took a few pictures of the Brigham City Utah Temple.  We had a sandwich which was not to good at an eating place south of Brigham City.

 Brigham City is noted for all the Sycamore trees that lines both sides of main street.

Our next stop was in Eagle Mountain where we visited with Eric.  We dropped Elizabeth off there.  Eric has a beautiful home.  The kids were asleep.  Holden and Megan live there in a basement apart which is supper nice.  Megan is the nanny and Holden is fifteen minutes from work.  We then drove home.