These are a Few of My Favorite Things: Bear Lake Edition.

Scoobs with some of his cousins

To fully appreciate my love of Bear Lake you must know a bit of the history.  Bear Lake as I know it, was built by my grandfather.  It is a place my mom grew up coming & I place I grew up coming.  It is not fancy, but it near & dear to my heart.  As I've gotten older, I haven't had to opportunity to go as frequently as I did in my youth.  As we drove into the itty bitty town that holds what we call, 'Wits End' I actually got a little teary.  The place holds so many choice memories that I had forgotten until we got on the very streets.  Pulling into the yard with our windows down, the smell overcame me.  It was so familiar & exactly the same as I remember...except I couldn't remember it until I smelled it again.  And the picture above?  I think I will blow it up and hang it right next to the one of me when I was 5 with all my cousins in the yard with our sticks.  It never gets old.

So here are some of my favorite things...in photos.

 

The tire swing.  The same one I used & it still never gets old.  Unless you get going crazy & whack into the tree.  That is not fun.

 

The red clubhouse swing.  I'm not sure how long the red clubhouse as been there, but I never remember it not there.  I am pretty sure we've gone through a couple swings though.

 

 

The ladies that make it all possible. my mom & grandma. 

 

Baby Birds.  We found this nest & my cousin got it down without touching the birds & the kids hunted & fed them worms.  Gross, but really cool.  The birds eventually got too big for the nest & it fell from its perched place & we had to have a little rescue mission.

 

The reservoir & the plank.  Scoobs was a little nervous to get out on it.

 

Bullet casings...and the search thereof.  I've put about 20 of these through the wash as he has had them tucked into every pair of pant pockets.

 

Motorcycle rides. This is the same quad my grandpa used to drive me on.  Love it.

 

And stops along the way on those motorcycle rides.  The water was really high this year, so the stream was full.  Lots of fun.

 

Play time.  The yard kept 11 kids busy for hours on end.  I think they spent 2 whole days catching bugs among plenty of wiffle ball games.

 

No trip is complete without a raspberry shake.  The Lady learned she really loved ice cream & I learned she can tolerate quite a bit of dairy these days.  win-win.

 

Fireworks.  Scoobs was all.over.these.  Here he is with a roman candle thinking he is the man.  I was just hoping to leave with all his fingers in tact.

 

On the very last day I took Scoobs for his last motorcycle ride up the canyon right outside our driveway.  It is a ride I've done about a million times, but had yet to go to the very top on this trip.  I was a little nervous to go by myself with the water being so high & having to cross the stream several times to get to the top.  But decided to go ahead anyway.  As I was driving up my mind started to wander & I remembered taking this ride to the very top with my grandpa & my parents.  I could see the end in my mind & remembered my grandpa pulling out his buck knife & carving my initials into one of the trees.  The water was high that year as well if I remember correctly & the so the trees were very soft, making the carving very easy.  As I thought about this I started to wonder if I could find the tree.  I was sure this was the ride, I just wasn't sure where the end was.

We got to a dead end where I could no longer cross the stream & still hadn't found the tree.  I remembered getting off our motorcycles all those years ago & hiking around a bit, but I never remembered all the water, like it was now.   As I looked around I determined that I needed to cross the stream...again.  So Scoobs & I took off our shoes & rolled up our pants & hoped we didn't slip in.

We made it across & there it was.

 

A.B. 7-95

This was my favorite part.  It felt so good to be near him again.  

thanks grandpa for all the memories. xoxo.