Bonaparte Lake, Washington
August 5, 2023
We had been fortunate in our travels so far this year to miss out on the haze from the Canadian wildfires that has plagued much of the rest of the country. Our luck seemed to have run out as we left the North Cascades and headed eastward through Washington, encountering a good amount of haziness along the way.
However, as we neared our remote destination of Lake Bonaparte just shy of the Canadian border, the skies became clear and stayed that way for most of our stay.
Much different scenery than the North Cascades
Our campsite was situated on the south shore of the lake in a pleasant pine forest, and for the next several days we felt like we were on vacation at a private lake house, cut off from the outside world (except for other vacationing families). It might seem odd to say that we felt like we were on vacation, since from an outside perspective it must appear that we are always on vacation. But, not having cell or internet service anywhere nearby in such a nostalgic setting made it feel like we were truly "getting away from it all".
Lake Bonaparte, our temporary backyard
Our campsite seemed to be a thoroughfare for all sorts of little animals
Our site was pretty close to the small day use area that had an inviting swimming hole, and we enjoyed listening to the kids happily playing in the water and jumping off the floating dock. Best of all (at least for Julie) were the loons! She had been looking forward to some loon tunes since booking the site some time ago, and she wasn't disappointed. Now, if only there weren't such things as generators, the experience would have been near perfect. We were fortunate, though, that the few generators we heard were pretty subdued, except for the guy across the loop with the loud contractor-grade abomination. Fortunately, he only ran it one day (morning until evening), and didn't again until the day we left.
The day that generator man ran his machine was the day we decided to take the bikes out for a long ride (19 miles) around the surrounding area, so that worked out great.
No idea why our lake doesn't show up here
The surrounding narrow roads had hardly any car traffic
Beaver Lake
A more "major" road--still hardly any traffic
Beth Lake
Another day, we ambled around the shores of Lake Bonaparte as far as we could go before it got too brushy (3.5 miles total).
Don't know why the lake doesn't show up on the GPS mapping software - so I added it myself.
A fun floating swim dock
Someone had carved some chairs from a couple of stumps
After running out of trail, we escaped through a cattle fence.
Couldn't think of a good caption for this one
We didn't do much else besides sitting around at our "lake house", playing games, reading books, and watching people fish and kids play. (And listening to loons! 😊).
Rick even took a vacation from taking photospheres, although he did take a night shot...
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