A long Labor Day weekend spent with family in a rented home overlooking Bear Lake. Nothing boring about that. With so much to do, what would we do first?
It's been my goal for over two years now to ride my bike the entire 50 miles around Bear Lake. This was my chance. The day was calm and overcast. Perfect riding conditions.
My ride takes me north, going clockwise, around the lake. I travel into Idaho passing through small farming communities. Along the way I pass this abandoned house that looks like it came right out of a painting. I was actually so fascinated with this home that I ended up driving back here to show Lily and to take pictures.
I then made the turn eastbound heading over the north beach of the lake before it turned south again.
My trip took me past many beaches, homes, and campsites. Who knew there was so much to see and do around this lake. I finished my ride in 2 hours and 55 minutes at an average speed of 17 mph. I was tired, but it felt good to accomplish my goal and in the time frame I had anticipated.
When I came back I found Tristan playing in the sandbox making castles. We spent the rest of the day just lounging around.
Later that night the cousins showed up. They all had a sleepover in the bunkbed room.
The next day we all headed over to the beach. We spent half of the day there playing in the shallow waters, building mud castles and enjoyed lunch.
Tristan decided the conditions were just right to make a sand angel.
If you've never seen the effects of athletes feet before, then here's a close up. Yep, that's actually his skin peeling away from his feet! The sand did a great job of helping it along.
After having our fun in the sun we all headed over to the center of town to pick up a few of their famous raspberry shakes. They were really good! Lily brought along her newest nephew, Emanual, to Bear Lake with us which kept her busy.
We then headed back to the cabin and enjoyed our shakes around a campfire. And of course , any time you have a campfire, you gotta have marshmellows. We toasted a few of those before we called it a night. All in all, a pretty great day.
Our last day in paradise we decided to visit the Minnitonka Cave, which was packed. We waited 2 hours until it was our turn to tour the cave.
So we spent the time taking pictures and snacking. At first Tristan was scared of the cave because his cousin told him there were vampires. He later came to the conclusion that she didn't know what she was talking about.
Out of nowhere these three all seemed to be in sync and threw in a "Charlies Angels" pose.
After exploring the cave, it was time to go home. We headed back to the cabin and packed our things, looked at the lake one last time and then drove the two hours back home. Looking forward to coming back next year!
