The Relaxing 2014 Vacation: Partial Trip to Lake Alice

We decided to go for a drive today.  With the sky still overcast and threatening rain, a trip to Bear Lake was ruled out as being impractical.  We piled into the car and drove out to Pine Creek ski resort.  I've never been much of a skier.  My only real attempt was in high school during my class' senior sneak.  One of the places we visited was Snow Bird.  If I'd been left on bunny hills, I would have had a fun time (to a point).  Unfortunately, I was convinced to go up to the top of one of the major hills and then left there by those who initially came with me.  I tried to ski down, but I either fell down after 50 feet or so and my ski kept popping off my right foot.  After this happened several times, I grabbed the ski in disgust, yanked off the other one and stomped toward another chair lift some 200 yards from me.  One of the resort employees yelled, "Hey, you can't do that!" when he saw me walking.  "My ski keeps popping off!" I snapped back.  I think he realized I was going to walk down the hill if he didn't intervene, so he put me on the chair lift going down.  It was humiliating to watch the other people coming up the hill whisper and point at me.  The experience cured me of any desire to continue skiing; but I digress. :)

 

We stopped at the resort for a moment and I pointed out the different runs (as best as I knew them).  Afterward, we drove back to the main road and I turned right and continued driving along the road until we reached the end of the pavement.  The dirt road branched to the left and right.  Wooden signs pointed us in several directions.  We had driven on the left road the last time we came this way about 7 years ago, so we chose the road to the right leading to Lake Alice.  Although the road wasn't paved, it was maintained and in generally good condition.  There were a few places where prior rainstorms had made the road muddy, but not impassable.  Also, there were a few times when rain spotted the windshield, but it never turned into a huge storm.  The road took us through a couple of cattle ranges before becoming a part of the Bridger National Forest.  At one point, we were treated to a spectacular view of the local mountain ranges.

I couldn't drive very fast on the road, so the miles didn't pass as quickly as they normally would have (driving fast on the dirt road wouldn't have been a particularly good choice on my part).  We had a feeling we were pretty close to our destination which caused me to keep going forward.  Finally, the road wound its way down the mountain in a series of switchbacks (not too overly pronounced) until we came to a river.  At first the river ran alongside the road until we came to a bridge.  I thought this was good since we wouldn't have to ford the water.  Five hundred yards later, however, we found the river had overflowed its banks and covered the road.  I didn't like our chances of making it through the water and mud without getting stuck--not a good plan with us so far away from Cokeville and I don't think Jen brought her cell phone (not sure if we would have had reception out there).  Reluctantly, I carefully turned us around and we started our way back to the main road.

The trip wasn't a total bust.  Even though we didn't make it to the lake, we were able to see some beautiful country.  Also, we caught sight of some animals on the way back.  We hoping to see a bear (we saw two black bears during our trip 7 years ago), but no such luck this time.  Instead, we found two does grazing in an open field.  One of the does hurried quickly into a group of nearby trees, making it impossible to get a picture of both animals, but the other one hung around long enough to get her picture taken.  I also caught sight of a cow elk (it may have been another doe, but it seemed too big to be a deer).  She was also on the side of the road and quickly ran down an embankment into a stand of pine trees.  Everyone else caught a glimpse of her in the trees before she disappeared deeper into the woods.

Later in the evening after we returned from our excursion, Dad gave the lesson for family home evening.  He focused on Adam and Eve and pointed out two additional things to go along with what I wrote in my posts about them and agency.  When we read (Moses 5:4), he pointed out that Adam and Eve had couple prayer.  His comment for Moses 5:12 was that Adam and Eve had FHE with their family.  I like those insights, along with the others he mentioned because they "likened the scriptures unto us" (1 Nephi 19:23) as I mentioned in my post concerning scriptures.

This is our final full day with Mom and Dad.  We have had a very nice time with them and have been grateful to spend a relaxing 9 days with them.  Dad even got a sample of Jennifer's Father's Day gifts as she put together a picture craft for both he and I yesterday.  I love my parents and am glad they let us come and disrupt their lives for a little while. :)  Tomorrow we make our way to Utah.