Bear Lake

“We went to Bear Lake for a week with the Brewsters, the Nordfors, and the Hansons every year. Sometimes the Woods would join as well. They were all our friends in the ward and somehow they decided to start this tradition together. We started going when I was about 10 years old and we went every year until I was 46 years old.

My Mom would start preparing for Bear Lake at least a week before. She would put everything on the kitchen table so we would not forget anything. We would be there for a week and we had to have all our meals ready to go. On the day of departure, we would get up really early in the morning and get in the station wagon with everything packed so nicely. Everybody that went lived really close, but we all met in Evanston on the drive there and had breakfast together. Then we finished the drive and there was always a competition to see who would be the first to see the lake.

At first, we stayed in cinder block motel rooms. They were tiny so I would have to sleep in the station wagon. I think all the girls were in there together.

We played all day and went water skiing and got sunburned. We had the big ugly orange water ski vests that we had to wear and they were really uncomfortable. One time the boat was pulling 8 of us waterskiing behind the boat. It was a big challenge to take off waterskiing from the dock and then finish coming into the shore so we wouldn’t get our hair wet. That was the goal.

At night, we would go over to Ideal Beach because they had a soda shop and a jukebox. We would play the jukebox and dance. There were some cute boys in the other families and sometimes they would bring a friend. They had a roller skating rink too and Glen Hanson would pay for us all to go roller skating together.

We would have dinner in our separate little tables in front of the motel and then all the families would share dessert. My Mom always made butterscotch pudding with graham crackers and bananas in it. This was the most popular dessert so she would always have to make a big batch of it.

We would often have a big fire on the beach and roast marshmallows.

Later we moved over to Blue Water Beach and stayed in bigger motel rooms and they had a campground in the back so we could have Mom and Dad’s camper and set up some tents as the family got bigger.”

-Shelley Polson Johnson