Chapter 7, Day 7...Ice Skating, Anyone?

Awake, breakfasted, car-packed, anxious dog already seated (for fear of being left behind), and ready to hit the road, Day 7!

"I want to see the lake," Little Bear told us.

"That's where we're headed, buddy. Let's just listen to a CD and read some books and we'll be there. Just a little over an hour and we can get out, walk around and see the beautiful blue, crystal clear lake."

And so the day began.

We drove out of town and saw a couple of beautiful lakes, but not the one we were headed to. Not the deepest lake in North America! And it was right in our path to tonight's destination. We just had to climb in elevation a tiny bit to get there...or so we thought.

Here's what we saw driving out of town:

Then up we went...a thousand feet here, another thousand feet there. We started seeing snow on the sides of the road but no precipitation and still a beautiful, sunny sky.

Up we went another few thousand feet and, um, this wasn't what we were expecting. Snow was falling, snow drifts were getting bigger. There wasn't another car on the road from what we could see (smarter than us, I guess).

We weren't giving up though. The roads still weren't dangerous and, surely, to get to the lake we would go back down the mountain and into a valley where the skies would be clear and we could walk around in the soft, green grass and see this great site, just like we had envisioned it!

Needless to say we continued up until we finally made it to our destination.

Here's the visitors' center:

The creepy bathroom (looks like a regular outhouse, right?):

Until you open the door and find a long dark (don't be fooled by the camera flash) tunnel leading to another door...which finally gets you to the bathroom buried beneath 20 feet of snow. CRAZY!

And finally, the clearest, bluest, most beautiful lake in North America:

I know, right?? The joke was on us today! We laughed pretty hard. In fact, Little Bear, Shaddie Bear, and I didn't even get to see it in person. The above picture is the best we got. Daddy Bear had to climb up a 10 foot snow-drift to get to it. At least we can't say memories weren't made!

Now, Day 7 doesn't end here. No, we still had a few hours of driving to go. We somehow made it out of the mountains and found this beautiful sight at our final destination for Day 7. Phew!

I was completely mesmerized by these trees.

And Little Bear was equally amazed by the fountains.

We went to Confession, Mass, and walked around on the most beautiful state capital lawn I know of.

This would be our last night to dream of our new home before it would become a reality.