Matilda and the Lake

My kind sister (Matilda, but know to the blogging world as Chicken Dust) reminded me that I left several important things out of my trip to Bear Lake. Namely, that she, her husband, and son came and stayed the night with us in the sweet cabin with the porch swing. And I could tell you that story and how awesome it was that they came up because I was going to go with 4 friends but 1 cancelled and 1 couldn't go and NO ONE ELSE that I even remotely knew could go either and I was really worried about paying for the 4-person cabin when we only had 2 people and then the night before I went up I called her and she and her family were going to be up at Bear Lake on Saturday anyway so it was like it was meant to be, but I will spare you the details. Just know that Peter, her son, spent a lovely night sleeping in the cabin and then wanted to get up and play at 5:45 am. But not with anyone else--Peter only lets his mother and father look at him. I looked at him a couple of times but he started screaming so I stopped. :)

Before they came up, though, my sister Losaunne and I were cruising around looking for a place to eat. And by "a place to eat" I mean a place with hamburgers that were less than $7 or chicken nuggets that were less than $5. We were appalled by the prices in town so we decided to drive out to this little diner I had seen near the north shore.

(If you want to know how to get sweet pictures like this, take a picture of something with your phone, then take a picture of the screen of your phone because you realize you can't upload from your phone to a computer. :)

We walked into the glaringly empty diner, saw the condition of the kitchen and dining area, and looked for a quick and non-awkward escape (oh, you guys don't serve filet mignon here? graceful exit). However, by this time a girl/woman (maybe 18 or 19--or 23, I couldn't tell) arose from where she was sitting in the dark corner of the restaurant, came over to us, and asked if we wanted menus.

"Do you have more than shakes?" I asked, as if this would be our easy out. When she nodded in the affirmative, we both took a menu and browsed our options. The menu had 3 folds and had breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus. As we were looking for cheap options and they only had 5 dinner items, all of which were over $7, I turned to the woman and asked, "Can we still order lunch items?"

She looked slowly at the clock, squinted at if for at least 5 seconds (it was 7:30 pm), and turned back and said, "Yeah."

Like it was a big deal or something. At this point we knew that we had to eat here--this place had real character.

Even after we saw the state of the kitchen.

Since we were the only ones in the diner, she brought out our water in large glass boot-shaped mugs. I turned to my sister and said, "This place is a dream!"

"Or a nightmare" she added.

Finally two other families came in (they must have thought it safe since we were eating there) and Losaunne and I were quick to observe that they got small brown plastic cups for their water. Ha.

And then they brought out our burgers. A cheeseburger, a hamburger, and a plate full of onion rings. I don't know what these onion rings were made out of, but they had very little onion and a lot of ring. A LOT of ring.

And don't worry--when I prayed I especially blessed my food so I would not get food poisoning, despite the filth in the kitchen, and it worked. The food was delicious and I probably only ate about 5 cups of oil and grease.

The killer story, however, involves my other Matilda--my car.

This is a picture of the space from the ground to the bottom of my car. Now picture my car buried in sand and rocks up to that rim. (Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera so didn't take a picture.)

This is how it happened: my sister and I wanted to go swimming before the tourists crowded the shores. So early Saturday morning we headed to a beach that was more secluded than the others--and thus less crowded. Problem: I wasn't wearing my contacts because I didn't want to swim with them in and it was fine driving like that because I can see any sort of object that would be a danger. I just couldn't see things like textures or have much depth perception. Therefore, I was really grateful when a car turned onto the dirt path to the beach right before I did so I could follow it.

Unfortunately, I turned in one path too soon. And this path was not for cars. It was for ATV's, or walkers, or animals, or anything that doesn't immediately sink into soft sand upon impact.

After getting halfway through the path (it connected to the main path after about 15 feet) I was up to my axel in sand and rock. My tires were buried and there was no getting out of this mess. Even so, I knew I had to do something, so I started digging my tires out with my hands and my sister and I tried to push the car while it was in neutral.

Seeing our fruitless effort (we were right next to the paved road) a large truck pulled over and a man got out and walked over to us.

"You guys stuck?" he asked.

I answered in the affirmative, thinking he would offer to pull us out.

"It is not our day. My truck's overheating."

I had been wrong. He wasn't coming over to help us, he was coming over to comiserate with us!!!

Thankfully, though, a jeep from on the beach saw our predicament (the people in the jeep, not the car) and came up to help us. They drove up, looked at the guy, and asked, "Are you going to help them?"

"I can't, man," he answered, and then walked back to his truck.

Things were getting quite comical by this point. A man with a truck comiserates with us about our bad day as I try to dig my car out of the sand with a small rock and my sister, in her pajamas and swimsuit, stands by looking on. The men with the jeep grapped a rope and quickly pulled my car out, for which I was thankful, but also so embarassed (especially since when they attached the rope, I asked if they wanted me to get in and steer. And they were like, yeah, while laughing in derision. It was awkward. I'm sorry! I've never been stuck before! I didn't know if they wanted to first get it unstuck and then have me steer!) that I parked down on the beach and we quickly ran as far away as possible from them so they couldn't see my red face. So thank you, two jeep-owning Samaritans, and I hope you don't recognize me if you ever see me again. I sure won't recognize you, because I wasn't wearing my contacts so couldn't determine your facial features.

All in all it was a thrill and a half to go to Bear Lake. And I was relieved that we had such odd experiences so I had something to blog (and laugh) about.