Lakeside Camping!

Hello Blog,
Glad that I could make it back to you. Here is a narration of an adventurous experience of ours!
This weekend we camped at Lake Chelan State Park for two nights. It was our first camping for the year and surely had lot of learning from the trip!! We started planning as we wanted to test our new bike rack with a short road trip. Lake Chelan won the lottery and we immediately booked our camp site and got the only remaining popular tent site.

Journey
We chose to travel by US-2 for two reasons, shorter distance and lower speed limits than I-90. Remember, we are testing the bike racks! Added bonus was the halt at Leavenworth, both ways!

Our car with the bike rack!

Day 1:
We stopped at Leavenworth for lunch. Leavenworth is beautiful in the Spring too! We had always seen Leavenworth in December, when it is covered in snow. It was nice to see without the snow cover!!

We had lunch at Munchin Haus as this place has the best bratwurst hot dogs! True to its fame, the hot dogs were nothing like I have ever eaten! They even have vegetarian options, for those who are feeling left out.
Alongwith the hot dogs, we had a big pretzel bread with cheesy dip. The dip was delicious!

Finally, we reached our campground and checked in. There are a flight of stairs to take us down to our site. We had to park the car up and bring our stuff down by stairs. When we reached our campsite, Lake Chelan and the serene mountains welcomed us!!

Panaromic view from our campsite

Since we were still early in the season, we had to go to a nearby store 3-4 miles away for firewood. Park store opens on Memorial Day.
Photos of our tent site...

Relaxing in the evening!

From the water board

Day 2:
In the morning, we were woken up by the chirping birds literally on our head and a beautiful sunrise!

Sunrise from our tent window

Enjoyed our morning cup of Joe on the water board.

Followed by breakfast.....

What is that Rudransh???

Oh! forgot to mention, we used to have regular visitors, squirrels and marmots with families from the rocks!

Post breakfast relaxing and chatting...

As it started getting warmer, Rudransh decided to get into the water wearing his wet suit! After entering and swimming for a while, he came out and we decided to do some rock hiking and finally head back to our tent.

Then we got ready for our boat and jet ski rides. We got dressed in our swimwear and wore a jacket on top and headed for our drive. It was pretty windy and cold. We rented the boat and jet ski from Jet Ski Ahoy. We took the boat first, our first time driving a boat!! Wow, it was an adventurous experience!
It is not the same as a car on road. If you turn the steering, boat will turn after a while. Brakes will not immediately stop the boat. We had to be so careful while docking so we not hit the boat.
Here we are all excited...

Shourya driving the boat

My turn to drive the boat...

Rudransh enjoyed the whole time!

Then Rudransh also drove with Shourya as his supervisor!

Our campsite from the middle of the lake!

We stopped the engine in the middle and floated peacefully! All you could hear was the wind and waves and of course, other boats zooming past! We had snacks floating in the middle of the lake!

And relax too!

After 2 hours of boat ride, we hopped onto our jet skis!

I was driving at 11 mph most times, max I hit was 25 mph. But Shourya was just zooming past at 40 mph!! Unfortunately, we did not plan about vidoes and photos. I did not carry a camera so could not take videos of the boys' jet ski! At one point, Shourya was faster than a racer....yes there was boat racing happening! 

Then, we returned home, and settled for dinner.

We prepared the food looking at the Lake and boats passing by.

At dusk, the reflection from the city lights on the water formed a necklace, Necklace road in Mumbai and Hyderabad!

And then, Shourya and Rudransh were telling wild stories, each trying to one up in creativity!

After the perky stories, we retired to bed.

Day 3:

Woke up to the beautiful sunrise, enjoyed our morning coffee. I relaxed on the mat for a long time, reading a book having coffee while the boys were sleeping. Blissful!

We leisurely had breakfast, packed and then left for home. On our way, we stopped at Leavenworth for lunch. Before heading for lunch, we stopped at Waterfront next to river Wenatchee! It was breathtaking even without the snow! We took out our bikes and explored the trails!

 After our bike ride, headed to Rudloof's pizza and relished the pizza. The toppings were local flavours, like bratwurst. The breadsticks and the dip was delicious too!

Sadly, our trip came to a conclusion, but hey, we did plan our Memorial Day trip!

Here is Bhattacharya family wishing everybody a fantastic summer!