Tuesday.
We started out really early because the road to Bear Lake is closed to private vehicles from 9:00-4:00 due to major road construction. We could get on a shuttle, but when it stops at every shuttle stop, it’s a two-hour one-way trip just to get to the trailheads. No thanks. So we left the cabin around 7:00 to get over the mountain and through Bear Lake Road before they closed it.
Josh said this road construction was his favorite thing!
Before we hiked around Bear Lake, we did the .5 mile hike to Nymph Lake. Beautiful. It was here that another homeschooling mom asked us if we homeschool 
Continuing on the trail – Nymph Lake from up high.
Yellow aspens were gorgeous.
Another .6 mile later was beautiful Dream Lake.
Dream Lake was a long narrow lake loaded with fish – we spent a lot of time watching trout as the trail went right beside the lake for a long time.
.7 mile later – our destination – Emerald Lake.
See the black/white stripes near the center of the picture – that’s water running down from melting snow. Pretty neat.
Snacktime.
And time to enjoy the beauty.
Obviously someone didn’t follow the regulations about feeding the wildlife, because this cute little guy was begging almost as soon as we sat down.
No fear!
Hiking back down the way we came – this elk calf and its mother weren’t ten feet from the trail!
Cautious, but not fearful.
What amazed me was how quiet we became. Typically our family isn’t the peaceful solitude that many people are searching for
Back to the trailhead parking lot. We got a real kick out of hikers who really roughed it – carrying their beds with them. We decided they were the inspiration for SpongeBob Square pants! (Even funnier yet is that SpongeBob Square pants is in the dictionary of this blogging program! Who’d have thunk it?!!!!!!!!)
Before a late lunch, we did the half-mile hike around Bear Lake. Immediately chipmunks were chasing us – again obviously well trained to beg food. This one was chawing on a piece of pine cone and got no food from us!
So cute. Josh said, “Dey got wittle hands!”
Josh rode in the carrier on most of the steep inclines, but Bear Lake is pretty flat and he was a great little trooper hiking around it.
“I need a west.”
Lots of rocks to throw in.
Josh took every chance he could to feel the water
Again, it rumbled and thundered around a lot and a few drizzles cooled us off, but we again made it back to the van without getting soaked.
Another stop at the river for r & r.
Still cloudy, thundering, a few drizzles – would’ve been neat to see a storm but it never did.
Continuing on – four beautiful mule deer bucks alerted us to this coyote as they chased it!
(only got three in the picture.)
From there to a Visitor Center Museum which was not impressive as total fiction is presented as unquestionable fact. “75 million years ago…” and “6 million years ago…” and “maybe this…” etc. It just boggles my mind that people will have such faith in such fiction as evolution just to eliminate the reality of a Creator God Who already wrote the world’s history in His book, the Bible.
So the universe was void and black, and BANG! a beautiful perfect earth was just created?! REALLY??? When common sense tells us, as we look around, that nature tends to decay – as in everything will eventually change to a state of less structure than it started. Like rust. And organic matter. Whoever would believe that rust could turn into a shining new piece of metal? Huh? Or dust can spontaneously turn into a dead log? Preposterous! And yet that’s exactly what evolutionists believe – that nothing BANGED and turned into something – not just something, but something perfect that is EXACTLY the right distance from the sun. Too far – we’d freeze to death. Too close – we’d fry. “By chance” it’s PERFECTLY positioned to sustain life.
No, it’s not chance, it’s divinely designed by our God Who is alive. Anything else is blind faith – faith in nothing except a determination to eliminate all possibility of a God Who will hold them accountable one day for what He wrote in His Book. No God – no Bible – no judgment, right?
Wrong 
Judgment will occur whether one believes it or not.
