The Bear Lake Trip That Almost Wasn't

For a few weeks now Kade has been planning a Bear Lake trip.  

The day finally came.

The original time to leave was noon.

Then it got bumped to 12:30.

When did we really leave?  One.

Kade, Brent, Matt, and I piled into Matt's car.

Half way between Logan and Bear Lake we hit a pothole. 

The pothole was conveniently located next to the dead deer.

So 1:30 brought about a flat tire (that you cannot see in this picture).

We are still not sure how the above picture resulted in the one below though.

 Trust us, it was flat though.  No matter how long we waited it remained flat.  Weird, I know.  We had the spare, the car jack, and other tools, but we needed some special wrench to get to the lug-nuts, and we did not have that tool.  Of course.  What else didn't we have?  Cell service.  It reminded us of why the 90's sucked.  So Matt took off down the mountain to try and get a signal to call for a tow.  In the meantime, some forest ranger guy stops.  YAY!  Except for not.  He mostly told us that the car was in a bad spot right on a corner.  Yeah, we know.  Then he was ready to leave.  Finally Kade asked if he could give us a ride or help at all.  Oh you have a two way radio you could use?  Why did you not offer that before???  He said he could call for a tow truck.  But then we needed Matt to tell us who he wanted to call because it needed to go through his insurance.  So we were stuck again.  Brent took off to go see if he could find Matt.  Forest service man took down our info, while Kade and I could not have been more pleased about how unhelpful this man was being. 

Brent was such a trooper and RAN back up the mountain. I was impressed.   

Unfortunately he didn't have Matt with him, so we were still stuck.  Forest ranger dude said that he'd be back in two hours and help us if we were still there.  All I could think was, "Shoot me now if I'm still here in two hours."  And that thought almost became reality.  Matt didn't come back until 3:00.  An hour and a half.  This seemed to encompass all of our emotions.  

While we waited this is what we did:

We noticed Brent's injury from the accident.  Or he had a scab before and ripped off.  

Kade unsuccessfully tried to remove the pole from the ground.  Maybe next time.  

Kade picked me a bouquet.  

And I loved it.  

A tour bus drove by and people took pictures of us.  We felt like celebrities and sang this song.

We got tired and decided to sit in the car.  Then a highway patrolman came and sat behind us with his lights on so we wouldn't die (and it was very nice of him).  That allowed Brent and Kade to take naps.  

  

Finally Matt came back!  We cheered.  

Highway Patrolman and Tow Truck Guy observed the situation.  

Matt brought a friend to take us back down to Logan.  We made it an hour and half sitting on the side of the road without dying and then almost died on the way home.  Idiot driver (who we are very grateful to) almost slammed into the back of a car several times.  To distract ourselves, Brent and I wrote notes back and forth and took pictures of the water that saved us from dehydration.  

We arrived back in Logan around 3:30.  We had ourselves a little pit stop and decided to try for Bear Lake again.  In my car this time, where we ate an entire bag of Doritos.   By 5:00 we were at Bear Lake!  It only took us FOUR hours longer than we planned.  WOOHOO!  

Kade and Brent were real excited about it.   

We just went to some rocky beach (because at this point paying to park at the sandy beach was not worth it).  Kade was happy because there was water and he could use his floaty.  

Except he used his floaty to beat on small children (not pictured).

He also laid on his floaty for a bit and decided we should play Titanic.  So I ran him into an "iceberg" and tipped him over.  He then clung to me and nearly drown me claiming, "It was the part where someone almost drowned Rose."  

Since it was rocky, I didn't want to take off my flip flops, but kept losing them in the water.  So I found some plants to strap them to my feet.  Best idea ever.  It worked like a charm.  

Kade used his floaty to have another nap.  

Overall, you could say it was a very successful trip (minus the first five hours).  

We also stopped for some shakes on our way home.  Once back in Logan we went directly to Cafe Rio for Taco Tuesday.  Then we took our cute lake-selves to a fire.  Rain caused the fire to turn into game night.  To end the day Kade took it upon himself to become my own personal hairstylist.  He felt a Snookie-esque look was in order.  He did not disappoint.  

Good day boys.  Good day. 

FBR (flat tire, Bear Lake, Rio) will always be ours.