On our way to Rock Springs, the van started acting strange and I had a feeling that something was amiss. I was following Ken in the van as we were expecting some snow (yes, snow!!) and we felt it was safer to drive the van separate. I had a walkie talkie and signaled to Ken that we had to pull over as the van would not move. Ken didn’t realize we were not following him anymore until at least a mile up this lightly populated road. Since a place to turn a 40’ rig around was scarce, Ken opted to use the “back up all the way” method to get to our van. Hehooked us up and acted as our tow into Rock Springs. We found a great mechanic in Rock Springs who could fix the transmission and have us back on the road in 6 DAYS!! The only campground in Rock Springs was a KOA which had a lovely view of the highway along with some big metal drums. The spots were tight and the cost was $50 a night! No thanks! The weather front we had been reading about was approaching and we made the quick decision to travel 140 miles to Bear Lake State Park. After all, we had six days to spend and Ken had heard Bear Lake was a beautiful place to camp.
We arrived around 7PM and had a bit of difficulty finding the state park. Our search took us around Bear Lake which is known as the “Caribbean” of the area due to the lake’s deep turquoise blue color. Amazingly beautiful. We found Bear Lake State Park on the Idaho side of the lake and decided to set up camp. There were literally no humans to be seen and we were the only ones in the whole park. We found out that the park had opened just 3 days before! We fell in love with the place. Idaho really does an amazing job with its State Parks.
The girls have such vivid imaginations and created an “umbrella shop” using old tumbleweeds with “handles’ as their inventory. They even supplied some umbrellas to a widow who had 14 children. (All in their imagination our course!) Andrew found a cool area to make a race track for his RC car and spent hours perfecting the jumps.
The storm didn’t end of coming to our area (although we did get a light dusting of snow that lasted for about 5 minutes). But the snow from a previous storm covered the Rocky Mountains which we looked out on from our RV. The view was nothing short of breathtaking. It reminded us all SO much of our views in Alaska.
Since we were dry camping, we moved our RV to the full hookup campground on the Utah side of the lake on Friday, just 5 miles away. During our 15 minute drive, we stopped in the town of Garden City, known for its raspberry shakes. The shakes were indeed very yummy! When we finally found the campground (signage needs to be improved), we set up camp and again found ourselves to be the only RV in the park!
We really enjoyed this campground and also liked just staying put as we had no tow vehicle to move us anywhere else!
Ken & Sallie,
Thanks so much for sharing you family vacation with me. It brings back smiles to me. When I was 10-14 when we’d car a van with motorhomes and campers up to Alberta Candada and back with my grandfather, uncles and friends. I will always cherish those memories and I’m sure your kids will as well. Well done!
Enjoyed your comments and pictures. Wish I was back on the road, have started to pack for next winter. What beautiful scenes and since I have been taking painting lessons I think I will paint some of these pictures. The one with the tree and egg next might be my first try. It is so nice to hear from you and I miss you guys and was just thinking about where you might be at this time and voila, there was this posting this morning. Please keep safe with your travels and keep us posted. It is always a pleasure hearing from you. We have told many of our friends about your ventures and we will let Collin and Maryanne know where you are what adventures you are up too. They are the ones with the big, big, huskey. We lost our little Freeway she almost made it home by 2 days. We still smell those great home made potato chips.
Jacqueline and Don
Hey Ken and Sallie
What a fantastic Blog. We had a great time visiting with you and your family in Arizona. Our kids sure miss yours. We are currently in Utah.
Brian, Eleesha, Brianna, Kailey and Kyle.