Bear Lake Vacation - Day Two - Family and Friends

I'd wanted to camp at Rendezvous Beach because it was the best place for shade at Bear Lake. And we did have a shady campsite - in the evening. In the morning we were at the mercy of the sun as soon as it rose. And that meant the kids were awake with the sun. It wasn't even 6:00. 

I told the kids that quiet hours didn't end til 7:00 so they needed to stay in the tent until 7:00. I got out The Hobbit and finished Chapter 1. At 7:00 we got out of the tent and had breakfast. We had a pretty simple breakfast planned. We'd just brought milk and the pre-packaged cereal bowls. I'm glad we did something simple because we all just wanted to be at the water. 

The kids were in their swimming suits and down to the water by 7:30.  And really, with a beach like this only a few steps from your campsite wouldn't you be down there as soon as you could too?

I have a lot of pictures like this. Get used to it. 

See, I told you. It was just so magical to walk down the path and see the beach and the lake all spread out below us. 

Derrick wasted not time getting into the water. 

This is Lydia. 

Here's Veronica working on a castle. 

And all of them in the water. They were still pretty leery of going too far from shore. Later, when other swimmers were in the water, I'd point out that they were still standing even though they were far from shore. But for now the kids were afraid there would be a sudden drop off. 

They went back and forth between the water and the sand. 

Here's Lydia building a sand castle. 

I like how the sand makes these cool shapes. 

Derrick loved the water. He's basically a fish.

Charlotte and Lydia worked together on this castle and mote for a while. 

And here I am. I was in my swimming suit. But the water never really warmed up enough for me to get into it that morning. Brandon and I bought camp chairs down and sat in those and talked. 

An airplane flew over like 80 feet above the beach. That's totally illegal so Brandon took a picture and we googled the number for where to report it. But the office was closed until probably after the 4th so I don't think anyone will care.

Here are the kids getting a little braver. 

At 10:30 I went up to the bathroom and took a shower. That was lovely.  Brandon had all the kids get out of the water at 11:00 and then showered off.  

Then we had a snack while they dried off. 

Everyone changed into regular clothes and we started driving to Logan. This part of our trip was added a little late in the plan. Logan is a complicated place for our family. On the one hand we have good memories there because Brandon and I met there and lived there the first three years we were married. But on the other hand we have bad memories because the USU flight program was a terrible experience for Brandon and we felt very stuck in Logan until he graduated with an interdisciplinary degree in 2010.

Also out of the 10 or so times we've gone back to Logan since we've moved it's snowed about 50 percent of the time. Even at times of the year when you wouldn't expect snow like May or October it snowed. Our last 3 visits in 2019, 2017, and 2016 all involved either snow or ridiculously cold weather. The weather has not helped Logan redeem itself in our memories.  

So at first I was content to just ignore Logan and focus on Bear Lake. But then two little seeds that were planted a while ago bore fruit. 

Seed #1 was a Facebook group I created over a decade ago for all the people who had been in our married student ward in Logan. It was a fun way to keep in contact and we set up a few reunions in 2011 and 2012. The group went silent about 10 years ago and frankly, I forgot about it. But a few weeks ago one of our old friends got in the group and posted that she and her family were going to be in Utah and wanted to meet up. 

It just so happened that the date of the Logan meet up would be Saturday July 1st which would be when we were at Bear Lake. I decided that we might as well make the drive through the canyon to see some of our old friends. 

That reminded me of Seed #2. Last year my Aunt Vera set up weekly video meet ups with my grandma, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We didn't make it onto the calls every week, but we were usually on there about once a month. One time my Aunt Karen was drinking rootbeer while she was on the call. She was talking about her brand new house in Logan and reminding us that we were invited to come for a visit. Derrick wanted to know if she would have root beer for him. She said that she would make sure she did. 

I decided that if we were going to be in Logan we should stop and see my Aunt Karen and her new house.  So I messaged her and asked if we could come.  Not only did she say we could come, but she said she'd feed us lunch. 

So her house was our first stop in Logan. It's a lovely house. As we drove up to it I told the kids, "This house is super new. Like it was just finished in the last two years. You need to be super good in it."  They all were.  And they all loved the tour of the house with all it's cool stuff.  (It literally has an elevator.)

Karen had lunch all ready for us when we got there.  There was lots of rootbeer because she remembered her promise to Derrick. She had orange chicken all ready for us and some other Asian food. The kids LOVED it. And Charlotte and Lydia casually ate with chopsticks like pros. 

Her house was so lovely and so cozy. She had three guest bedrooms and some of the kids were eyeing those beds like, "Do we really have to go back and sleep in a tent tonight."

Brandon fell asleep on the living room couch and Lydia fell asleep on this chair. 

At 3:00 it was time to go.  Karen sent us off with one last treat.  Root beer flavored shelf milk from Gosners. The kids were all super curious about that. 

We went to Aggie Ice Cream and got there just before a large group of people showed up. I was glad we didn't have to wait in line behind them, but having that big group made me jittery and I felt kind of rushed as I ordered.  So I was surprised when the "single scoop cone" really came with what looked like two scoops.  They ice cream scooping people even said we could get two flavors. That was kind of amazing. 

And when I paid it was only like $26 dollars.  When Brandon and I lived in Logan we were so poor that Aggie Ice Cream always felt expensive. But now I was like, "Oh wow this is such a good deal."  We have paid WAY more than that for WAY less ice cream at other places. 

Here's Derrick posing with an ice cream cone cut out. 

Then we drove around the USU campus and by our old apartments. Here's where Brandon lived when I met him and where we lived when we were first married. 

It's so crazy to think we started out here. That seems like ancient history. 

And here's the townhouse we lived in the second and third year we were married. 

We also drove by the airport. It was weird driving around the city. It felt familiar and I remembered a few things, but there was also a lot of stuff that I didn't remember.  And I'm not talking about stuff that's new. There was just a lot that I didn't remember. Normally I have a pretty good internal GPS. But I must have deleted all my Logan files. I couldn't remember a lot of the city. 

We went up to the park where the Pumpkin Walk happens. (I had to use the google maps to find it.) That's where we were meeting up with our student ward friends. We were supposed to meet at the pavilion, but I didn't recognize anyone there.  The last time I saw any of these people in person was in 2012 so it's been a while. I was like, "We should have all planned to wear the same color or something." 

And then all of a sudden my friend Christina was walking toward our car. I was like, "Oh my goodness!"  We got out of the car and she was pointing out her kids to me. She pointed to the bench where her husband and some lady were sitting she said, "That's Amy."  I was like, "No way, I thought that was just some women you were friends with." I could not believe that Baby Amy is now a teenager.

Soon we saw Lina show up with her family. And then Megan, and Martha, and Marcie. There husbands and kids were there too. I'm friends with all these people on Facebook, but it was just surreal to suddenly see them in real life. I was like, "I kind of thought you all just lived in my computer."

We talked and took a group picture (which I still need to track down.) My favorite thing was watching our kids talk. Lina had brought her dog so my kids were crowded around the dog talking with Lina's oldest daughter. And later they talked with one of Christina's girls. Veronica kept saying, "Can we see them again sometime?"

Everyone else had brought food for dinner and we had some stuff we could have shared too, but my kids were all starting to ask me when we were going back to camp.  So we decided to skip out a little before dinner. But it was still wonderful to have seen all those people. 

There were other people we could have seen in Logan. And if you are reading this, I'm sorry we didn't make plans to see you. I didn't want to over schedule our day with lots of stops. As it was we were already at about 5:00 and anxious to get back to the beach. 

We drove to Smiths Market Place and I went inside to grab some food that we'd have for breakfast the next morning. It was supposed to be a quick trip inside, but I walked in and immediately realized I had a problem. I didn't remember that store at all either. So it took me a little longer than it should have to buy the 8 or so things I went in for. 

Then we drove back up the canyon to Bear Lake. On the way we talked about how maybe Logan wasn't such a bad place after all.  Enough time had passed that the sting of all the bad memories had worn off. We decided that we needed to come back for a visit just to Logan sometime. (In the summer so we didn't have to worry about snow.)

We stopped at a rest stop with a view of the lake. The kids and Brandon started singing ""I can see my campsite" to the tune of "I can make your hands clap." That was funny.

Oh speaking of music, we heard Flowers by Miley Cyrus about a billion times on this trip. We also heard Karma is My Boy Friend by Taylor Swift a lot. 

The chorus to Flowers goes like this:

I can buy myself flowers
Write my name in the sand
Talk to myself for hours
Say things you don't understand
I can take myself dancing
And I can hold my own hand
Yeah, I can love me better than you can

At one point Brandon asked me if I could buy myself flowers. I was like, "yeah, before I met you I worked really hard to learn how to make myself happy so that I wasn't relying on a relationship to make me happy. When I met you I was able to just keep being happy with you. But I didn't need you."

He agreed with that, but that was enough seriousness so I wanted to make a joke.  I told him, "this is how the song would go if I wrote it:

I can't buy my own cellphone

Can't replace the SD card

I don't know how to fix an alternator

No clue how update my computer

I can't fix things,

But you can

He laughed at that.

Back at our campsite there had been quite the cottonwood seed snowstorm.  

It was all over the ground. 

The kids got back into their swimming suits and I went down to the beach with them. Brandon set up the camp stove and heated up chili. We had that with Freetos. We are not foodies when we camp. We like simple meals and this one is always a favorite. The kids ate so fast. 

Then it was back down to the beach.

Derrick and Veronica were all over the water. 

We stayed down there as the sun set. 

Here's Veronica loving the boogie board.  We'd brought the same two boards that we bought in Alabama in 2016. These also came with us to our last Bear Lake visit. They've been getting older over the years and I didn't think they'd survive this trip. But they held up well enough. 

Here's a look back at the beach from the water. I was still surprised at how empty the beach was. Maybe more people had been there during the day, but we had it to ourselves again this evening. 

Here's Derrick and Veronica playing in the water. 

The sun set with a bunch of clouds in the sky. The clouds looked a little stormy, but they were out over the water and didn't come toward us, so we didn't worry about them too much. 

Derrick and Veronica were in the water until the sun set at 8:40. 

The sun had gone down, but there was still a lot of twilight. We went up to the campsite and changed into pajamas. Brandon built a fire so we could roast marshmallows. 

Here's Charlotte with the fire. 

We had a good time talking for a while. 

There were a lot of fireworks going off near Lake Town and Derrick was getting nervous. I took him up to the bathroom so he could brush his teeth. While we were there everything got really windy.  The cottonwood seeds kicked up and looked like a snow storm. 

Brandon had been telling funny stories to the girls, but when the storm picked up he'd sent them all to the bathroom to brush their teeth. He could see big dark clouds coming over the mountain and heading toward us. 

He started securing everything around the campsite. He tied the canopy to the picnic table and he tightened the rain fly on our tent. I was in the tent helping everyone get ready for bed. I'd brough melatonin for Veronica, but everyone ended up wanting some. I guess most of the kids hadn't slept very well the night before so they wanted help sleeping through the night this night. 

Derrick was so scared from all the fireworks and the wind. I got him into his sleeping bag. We had his nose cancelling headphones pack for the fireworks on Tuesday so I got those out and put them on him. Those helped a lot. He snuggled down in his sleeping bag and didn't make a sound the rest of the night. 

Veronica is the only person in our family who still has one of the not so great sleeping bags. I'd meant to buy her a good one like everyone else, but I'd forgot to do it before this trip. She'd been cold the night before in that old, less than quality bag. So this night I made sure to really wrap her up well in our travel blankets. I put one under her and one over her and wrapped one around her feet. Then I zipped the bag all around her.  It also helped that she wasn't going to bed with wet hair this night. So she slept really well too. 

Charlotte and Lydia stayed awake a little longer. I tried reading them The Hobbit, but the wind was so strong we gave up on that. Brandon came into the tent just as it started raining outside. We were really for a really bad storm squall (we'd been though a bad one when we camped near the beach at St Andrew's state park in Florida), but a squall never came. The wind actually let up when the rain started. It rained really hard for a while and then petered out. 

I thought I was hearing the wind in the trees, but then I realized I was hearing the WAVES. We were close enough to the shore that we were hearing the water going back and forth on the beach as the wind blew it. That was such a nice sound to fall asleep to. 

Once again I was so happy that we had this campsite. I still was a dream come true. 

Bear Lake Vacation - Day One - Getting There

I'm so excited to tell you all about our trip to Bear Lake. This trip has been something I've wanted to do for YEARS so to finally do it was a dream come true. 

But first let's talk about why this trip was so important to me. 

I was about 16 years old the first time my family visited Bear Lake. We stayed at Sunrise Campground in the mountains above the lake. I'll never forget the first time we came down Highway 89 and I saw the lake. It was so blue. So pretty. It was absolutely stunning. 

We came down from our campground a handful of times during the 5 or so days that we camped there. We'd drive to the day use area along the west side of the lake and play for hours. I loved how shallow the water was. We could play and swim without worrying about it getting deep. It was so much fun. 

Fast forward a few years to the winter of 2006/07. I lived in Logan which was only about an hour away from Bear Lake. Brandon and I were dating and we drove over to Bear Lake and looked at the ice. Even in the winter it was pretty. 

Brandon and I were married in May of 2007 and that summer we were able to go to Bear Lake with my family. This time we stayed in a cabin that some family friend owned. We'd drive down to the beach and swim. One evening we went to the North Beach and swam while the sun set. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I ever saw. 

The next year Brandon and I planned a day trip to Bear Lake with his family. We all met up at the State Park day use area on Rendezvous Beach and had a great time. This is when the idea of camping at Rendezvous Beach started percolating in my mind. We were at the day use area, but I could see down the shore to the shady camping areas. I thought "One day I want to camp down there. It must be amazing to be right by the beach." That was in 2008.

The next year we did another day trip to the lake with some of my siblings. (I actually have a really early blog post about that trip. You can read it here.) By this point visiting Bear Lake was pretty much a given. Brandon and I agreed that we'd visit Bear Lake once a year no matter what. 

And then we didn't go back until 2018. Oops.

Babies, and more babies, and moving thousands of miles away just made it impossible to visit Bear Lake. 

We did visit the Gulf of Mexico a lot while we were in Texas and Alabama so we did have some pretty great experiences with water. But there was a part of me that still wanted to see Bear Lake again. 

So when we were settled in Idaho we planned a day trip down there in 2018. Brandon was busy with school and I had work and we couldn't nail down dates in time to get a camp site so we just did a day trip from Logan. It's probably good that we didn't camp because we ended up picking the COLDEST day that August. We went to the beach, and played for 2 hours, but ended up FREEZING. I actually caught a cold from that trip. (This post talks about our Bear Lake trip toward the end.)

I still wanted to plan a camping trip to Bear Lake, but things kept getting in the way. We were moving in 2019. There was a pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Things looked kind of possible in 2022, but I missed the reservation window for the one weekend that would have worked to visit the lake that summer. I thought about trying to figure out a Plan B, but Brandon wisely reminded me that we were going to Lagoon a lot that summer and so maybe Bear Lake could wait another year. 

That fall I was able to attend the Gathering Saints Leadership Retreat at Bear Lake. It was so lovely to see that lake again. When my kids saw my pictures from the retreat they started asking when they could visit the lake. (Mostly they were motivated by the slide that was inside the house I stayed at.)

And that brings us to 2023. I really wanted to make Bear Lake happen this year. 

I'd looked at the calendar and decided that we should aim for a camping trip to Bear Lake for Friday June 30. Reservations at Rendezvous Beach come available on a 4 month rotating basis. So campsites for the end of June would be available at the end of February. I put a reminder into my phone for February 28th and hoped for the best. 

I actually thought I'd missed it. I didn't remember to get onto the reservation site until around 9:00 am on February 28th. I thought for sure all the sites would be gone. But I think that the fact that February only has 28 days while June has 30 might have made some people forget that they needed to make reservations on the 28th.  There were lots of tent sites available. I couldn't believe it. What's more is that I could also make reservations into July. 

At first I was just hoping for a site for one night. But I saw that I could get reservations for the nights of Friday June 30th and Saturday July 1st. I figured we'd come home on Sunday July 2nd so Brandon could go to work on Monday the 3rd.  

And then I remembered that Brandon had that Monday off!!!!!  Brandon's work is kind of ridiculous about vacation days. So when they'd released the time off calendar for the year it had been a big deal that they were letting the employees off for the 3rd as well as the 4th. I'd made a mental note about that and remembered it just in time. 

So I found a site that I could reserve from June 30th through July 3rd. I can't remember if there were sites available for the 4th or not, but I already had another idea percolating for the 4th so I didn't worry about that day. 

And then there was nothing to do but wait and slowly get more and more excited. 

It's kind of funny how various family members react to our vacations. I'm ALWAYS the one that plans things and books things and gets everything set up MONTHS in advance. It's just a little too long range for most of our family members to appreciate. But Derrick is always pretty willing to get excited with me. He liked to read "Bear Lake" written on our calendar. And he liked to find Bear Lake on his map of Idaho. 

Brandon usually gets excited about our trips about 2 weeks before they happen. He'll be like, "Oh wow, we are going to Bear Lake in 2 weeks. That's so exciting." 

Charlotte and Lydia play like they are indifferent teenagers, but they usually get excited in the days leading up to the trip. They know I plan stuff they like so even though they act like they don't care - they really do. 

And Veronica. I'm not sure Veronica knew much about this trip. She was just kind of like, "Oh we are going camping. Okay."

We took care of grocery shopping on Wednesday night and then we packed everything Thursday night. I drove to work on Friday with all the camping gear piled in the car and in the roof top carrier. 

After work I took the kids to the dentist. (We broke the no cavity streak with two small cavities.) And then we just had to wait for Brandon to come home. The kids probably asked me a billion times when he'd be home. Which is kind of crazy because we got home from the dentist at 12:00 and he was due home at 1:30. 

I kept the kids busy by giving them small jobs to help us be ready to leave as soon as Brandon got home. They helped me with things like the last of the dishes, taking out the trash, making sure the windows were locked shut, picking the last of the strawberries, and other small things like that. 

Brandon came home, took a quick shower, changed into vacation clothes and then we were on our way. 

Our route would take us from Twin Falls, to Pocatello, to Soda Springs, and then down to the very southern tip of Bear Lake. Oh and I have to mention. I could have booked us a site at the Idaho State Park on the East Beach. But those sites have ZERO shade. So even though we are trying to do mostly "Idaho things" this year, I wanted shade enough to cross into Utah. 

About halfway to Pocatello I remembered that I'd completely forgot to pack the hotdogs when I packed the cooler full of food from the fridge. So we stopped at Walmart and Brandon and Derrick ran in to buy those. Here's a picture I took of us girls waiting in the car. This is a good reminder of another reason this trip couldn't happen last year. We didn't have enough room in the Pilot to fit all of us and our camping gear. Now that we have the van we have enough room. Yeah, we were still packed to the gills, but we had room for things like 5 gallon water jug and the canopy. Those things would never have fit in the Pilot. 

We drove from Pocatello to Soda Springs. We got there just in time to see the geyser go off. 

Charlotte wanted to take funny pictures.  She'd come here for girls camp earlier in the month and everyone had taken pictures like this. 

And this. 

Derrick looked at the geyser and was like, "I remember this!"

Here's Veronica taking a funny picture. She said she thought this place was in Yellowstone. 

A train went by and Derrick loved watching it. 

Here's another picture of the geyser. It's so pretty.

The water was done shooting out by the time we walked around to the top.

Veronica looked down at the car below her and yelled, "It's over Anakin, I have the high ground." I laughed. 

Then we drove to Hooper Spring park. We stopped at the bathrooms first and then the kids played on the playground. 

They were all trying to balance Brandon on the teeter totter. 

I love how all 4 of them will still do stuff like this. 

Then we went to Hooper Spring. Going here was actually Derrick's idea. We've been here as a family before, but I wasn't really considering it for this trip. Then Derrick got out the kids phone and showed me a picture of the spring that Charlotte and Lydia took when they came here for girls camp. Derrick said, "I want to go here again."  I was like, "Oh yeah, we can do that on the way to Bear Lake."

Here's Derrick with the spring. 

We filled up our water bottles from the spring and then added some Root Beer flavored drink mix ins. The naturally carbonated water and the mix ins made the water taste just like rootbeer.  Everyone liked it except for Veronica who said it tasted like rocks.  

Root beer would end up being our unofficial theme for this vacation. 

We had to go to the bathroom again so I drove over there.  Charlotte and Lydia rode over with their heads out of the sunroof. 

Then we drove south. We passed through Montpellier and Paris and the kids were like, "When do we get to see the Lake."  All the kids had to pee so we stopped at a little gas station. And then kept driving.  Eventually we could see the lake on our left. That was exciting.  It was also good to see that the lake was much fuller than it had been when I was here in September. It still wasn't full, but the water was higher. 

I thought I could make it all the way to the campground without needing to pee, but Rendezvous Beach was much further from Garden City than I thought. I ended up pulling over at a day use area and using the vault toilet there.   

The kids all got out of the car and ran for the water. 

Then we kept driving and made it to Rendezvous Beach. We checked in at the entrance station and got our little campsite sticker that said we'd be there until the 3rd. It was so nice to get that sticker. 

Then we drove over to the Cottonwood Campground and found our spot. We were at site 14. We parked in a parking spot with the number 14 painted on the ground and then we found the picnic table with a 14 on it. 

After we found our spot we went down to the beach. It was so close to our spot!  Just through those trees. 

Being close to the water had just one tiny downside. The kids all disappeared down there while Brandon and I were trying to set up camp.  Like they were helpful with getting the canopy up and setting up the tent. But they didn't stick around for blowing up air mattresses and setting out camp chairs. 

I had to go down to the water and get mad at them. It wasn't a great way to start the trip, but it did send a message - Mom and Dad will NOT be doing all the work on this trip. You guys are old enough to help too. 

It was like 7:00 or 8:00 at this point. We'd been snacking all day, but we were in need of an actual meal. I went to the little campground store and bought firewood and Brandon made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and had those for dinner. 

And then FINALLY it was time to go down to the water to play. 

The sky was just like how I remembered it when we'd been at the North Beach in 2007. I loved seeing the sunset on the water. 

The kids were a little leery of the water at first. I'd told them it was shallow for a long time, but they didn't believe me. And it was a little cold. So they started out on the shore. 

There was a big hole with water in it. The kids like that a lot. 

The kids became more comfortable with the water. Soon they laying and swimming in the water. 

Veronica kept yelling "this is the best lake ever!" and "Thank you mom for bringing us here."  This is what I live for as a parent. 

There were many other campers up at the campground, but we were the only people on the shore. It was lovely.

I was so happy that this could be our first night. I knew the next three days were going to be absolutely perfect. 

The kids played in the water until 10:00. I think they would have stayed longer, but Brandon and I wanted them to get out. We grabbed their clothes out of the tent and everyone changed in the bathroom.  (Which was heated and had flushing toilets.) Everyone was in bed by 10:45.  Then I started reading the kids The Hobbit. Most of them fell asleep before all 13 dwarves had shown up at Bilbo's house. 

I fell asleep thinking about how absolutely lucky we were to finally be camping near the shore of Bear Lake. I'd wanted to stay at this campground for 15 years and it was finally happening. 

I'll tell you all about day two in the next post.