Bear Lake Adventure

We spent the first half of this week up with my family in Bear Lake. My Dad has turned it into a yearly tradition to rent a place up near Bear Lake and then spend a couple days there with the family. Here are some pictures of the cabin...

Monday
We started off the morning hiking the Limber Pine Trail, which is just right about where Logan Canyon hits Bear Lake. Limber Pine is supposed to be a 2500 year old tree, the hike was lots of fun, Landon especially enjoyed playing in the dirt the whole time. However, we're not quite sure we ever saw Limber Pine or not...oh well. Here are a couple pictures from the hike.

After getting back from the hike we spent the whole afternoon out on the lake riding waverunners. This was probably the highlight of the trip, it was actually quite windy and that made for some crazy huge waves as you got out to the middle of the lake. Ali and I shared a waverunner and she might not look like the type to do anything crazy, but you should have seen her jumping from wave to wave at crazy speeds, laughing the whole time. It might have helped that she didn't have her glasses on or contacts in, when you can't see how big the waves are I guess you don't worry about how fast you are hitting them!

Tuesday
Tuesday morning was the annual four-wheeling with Grandpa Dave. He and his friend Morris (who happens to be 92 years old!!) brought up a bunch of four wheelers and we started off in Franklin Basin and rode out to Camp Wilderness, an old abandoned scout camp that my dad went to when he was a kid. Then we down the "horse trail", which was a very narrow, rocky trail through dense trees. At one point we had to go down some really steep rocks for a hundred feet or so...it was crazy! Even crazier was that the guy leading us down it was 92, and he was down a lot quicker than the rest of us! We finished the trip by riding over to a place where a military plane carrying soldiers returning from Korea crashed in the 50's. There was a monument up there and you could still find a bunch of little pieces of the plane on the ground. It was a great ride, and we all managed to get plenty dirty!

After four wheeling we quickly headed down to the lake for some boating. My dad rented a boat and a water weenie, so we climbed up on that and he drug us around the lake for a while.

Tuesday night we all went to the Pickleville Playhouse for a chuckwagon dinner and their Wild West show. It was hilarious!! From the tall, happy looking white guy playing a Mexican villain (Juanito Badito), to the random rap number - we rarely stopped laughing.

Wednesday
Wednesday was our last day, so after packing and cleaning stuff up around the cabin we went into town to grab one last raspberry shake and then it was time for some horseback riding. We went up to Beaver Creek Lodge in Logan canyon a guide took us on a two hour horseback ride. Ali almost immediately fell in love with a horse when we got there, unfortunately he was too young and they wouldn't let her ride it. Our guide, Bryan, was a really nice guy and he took us up on the mountain just across from Beaver Mountain. We rode up to a ridge through pretty dense trees and then probably half way up the mountain and stopped for lunch. It was quite the climb to get up there, and we were all glad that it was the horses doing all the work! There was a really great view up there and then all the way back down. All our horses were great...well, except for Jason's, which couldn't seem to follow the horse in front of him, or stay on the trail. This was pretty funny because Ali was behind Jason, and Ali's horse would just follow Jason's wherever it went - through bushes, over rocks, etc.

And that was it for our vacation, we came home Wednesday afternoon and then I was off to work until ten o'clock that night. I guess it's back to reality now!

Rodeo

We went to the Rodeo last Friday here in Logan and it was great fun. The first date that Ali and I went on after we officially started dating was actually to the rodeo, so it was fun to relive those memories.


The "Poker Match" to start the rodeo was great, they several guys sit at a card table while they let an angry bull loose. The last guy to stay sitting at the table would win $500. 00! It was funny to watch the guys try to stay sitting as the bull flipped the card table over, trampling and nearly goring them all in the process.

Here's a video of some bull riding.

After the rodeo we wandered around the fairground for a while. Ali absolutely loved all the animals, I think she was just about heartbroken that we couldn't buy a baby goat. This goat to the left was Molly, she was very content on not letting Ali take her picture.

Nine Mile Canyon Trip

My Dad has been wanting to take the family down to Nine Mile Canyon the whole summer, so this past weekend he rented a 12-passenger "plig-van" and we made the trek out there. It ended up being quite the adventure, first off on our way down we got stuck on I-15 for like an hour because of some huge wreck. Luckily Leslie had brought a bunch of toys and activities to keep Landon happy, and as you can see, Ali and I made good use of the playdough.

After we got through that mess it was smooth sailing until the dirt roads, lets just say those giant vans don't do so well off-road! But we made it intact, here is a sampling of some of the awesome petroglyphs and scenery...

The trip back home went rather well, my Dad decided to head back up through Heber and Park City to see if the dirt roads were any better in that direction (they were a little nicer). We were making good time until we hit Parley's Canyon and they decided to shut it down to one lane for no apparent reason. So instead of getting back to Salt Lake at 9:00 we finally pulled in at about 11:30.

Even with all of our traffic problems up and back it was still an awesome trip, we highly recommend it to anyone!

Getting Old...

Yup, it happened...I turned 23! That sure does sound kind of old. On a happier note, Ali got me this sweet picture of the Logan temple...now if we could only find a wall to hang it on.