Circus Adventure: Sand Hollow. Always.

If you haven't discovered the beauty that is Sand Hollow yet, all I have to ask is why not?

The beaches are soft and red.

The water is clear and warm.  In the fall, that is.  In the spring they're clear and cold.

This reservoir sits in the dessert in Hurricane, Utah.  Pronounced: "Hurrikin."

I know, it doesn't make any sense, but I didn't make the rules, I just follow them.

We've been visiting Sand Hollow at least once (but usually twice) a summer for several years now.  It doesn't matter if we're camping right on the beach, or parked in a paved camping spot with hookups.  It doesn't matter if we've brought the rzr's for riding, or the jet skies for pulling people on tubes and knee boards, or if we've brought or scuba gear for diving, or if we've just simply brought swimsuits and sand toys.

We love this place.

I think that's the part of the beauty of this place. How accommodating it is to different outdoor hobbies.  The Man likes to ride his rzr.  Great.  Sand Hollow has it's own mini sand dunes set aside for just that.  As well as several trails just outside the park and rocks for climbing around in.

Papa Mike likes to take his jet skies out.  Great.  You can do that here.

Grandpa Brent is all about scuba diving.  Great.  There's a section of the lake buoyed off limits for boats specifically for scuba diving.  They've even planted an airplane, a VW bus, a toilet, as well as platforms, tubes, and different shapes for swimming around in.  We even found an old missile.  And the canyons that are made by the natural rock formations are amazing.  The lake isn't very deep.  We only hit 40 feet at our deepest, and generally stayed around 30 feet, but that just means we're open to dive all day long if we so desire, and if we have the air left to do it.

The Circus likes to swim from rock island to rock island and jump into the water from the higher tips.  Great.  There isn't anything too high that it makes me nervous for them to be doing that, and the rock islands are inside the scuba diving area, so there aren't any boats around while my kids are out swimming and jumping.  The area is good for them to practice their snorkeling as well.

(My camera got fogged up with moisture on this picture, but it shows how Cali spent the whole weekend so I included it anyway)

I generally like to sit on the beach with my feet in the water, reading a good book, enjoying the sun, and hanging out with my kids.  Great.  The beaches are incredible.

This trip we loved have Grandpa Brent and Grandma Julie hanging out with us.  We also had my good friend and her kids join us as well.  Plus, we let Sean bring a friend on this trip in lieu of a birthday party.

 But even if we have to go it alone, we think Sand Hollow is a pretty great place to land for a few days.

Scuba Diving: Blue Lake Nevada

Wet suits are the new thing. I promise. Sadly, we didn't get any pictures with my dad.
Blue Lake is in every sense, the middle of no where. NO where. And in order not to get sucked into all the MUCK, someone built a boardwalk. Or what my dad called "the dock"... Please note in the following pictures my thought process, which was simply stuck on "Lord of the Rings" and the Dead Marshes... "don't follow the lights". And we're going to the bottom of it :).
But the pictures end here. My camera is water proof, but only up to 10 feet. That's snorkel talk. For diving... I might need to purchase a new camera. Sounds like a good idea to me!

Scuba maniacs in the making

For West's birthday/Christmas present I got him Scuba lessons. And a mask and fins. That's about all I'm going to say about Christmas right now simply because this post wasn't intended to be about our Christmas (which was fabulous and perfect in every way. Except the part where I didn't have my memory card in my camera and took out pictures on the internal memory of the camera... and now don't know how to get them on to my computer. But I'll get to that on another post. Right now I'm going back to my original intent to ramble). West just went through those classes, and since it's been a great while since I've made it under the water, I decided to take a quick refresher class. Yesterday West headed up to the Homestead crater for his final tests (woo hoo he's officially certified now and we're free to wreak underwater havoc!) and I went up with my birth dad and step mom to play around under the water too. I'm so at home in the water. I love it. I love the way it feels moving over my skin as I swim through it, and how absolutely STILL everything seems to be down under the surface. The crater was completely packed and it was actually anything but still with all the people there, but to me, it was silent bliss. I hovered, I swam, I sank to the bottom (65 feet under at altitude, which equals 90 feet under at sea level) and I loved every single minute of it. And now I can't wait to go again! We're talking about Blue Lake this weekend, and a trip to California. I'm thinking we need to just take the Beach Boys song "Aruba, Jamaica, ooo I wanna take ya..." and just work our way through all the places in it. I live in the wrong state! I'm excited West is getting into this with me. I can't wait to go out again.