There's a lake here?

Yesterday, was the 25th birthday of one of our roommates, Leah! We were all excited and decided to celebrate by going to the "lake" in the afternoon. I had no idea that there was a lake anywhere around here, and with the water scarcity we experience, I thought for sure this "lake" would be nothing more than a semi-large puddle. So, we piled into our 16-pass white van with a small grill and some hamburger patties, queso, buns, and ketchup. We drove past town and up a mountain a little ways (on frightful roads). Out of the left of the window I saw a dam (it was of course, dry)! I couldn't believe that there was a dam in this town, where we have to be so careful of water allocation. So, after about 25 minutes of driving, and sharing the front seat of the van with the birthday girl herself, we arrived at a beautiful (albeit small) lake. It was the only the second 'body' of standing water on the ground that I had seen in a very long time--the first being water at the bottom of the ~20ft well we dug a while back. After surveying the area, we set up 'camp' and played games, read, built a camp fire, went to the edge of the dam overlooking a wide spanse of land (very beautiful). When dusk settled, we cooked the hamburgers and then banana boats, and sang around the camp fire (ha ha!). We stayed until the only source of lighting came from the fire or the half-moon. After cleaning up and loading up we started out for the road in the van. Problem. With the van, the boys had scaled a small incline and then drove a bit further. We were not making it back over the small wall. We figured it must have had something to do with the immense poundage in the van. Everyone piled out, except Leah and I, because we could not risk giving up our highly-coveted front seat status. For about 12 minutes we tried and failed to make it over the wall and back onto the road. Finally, with what sounded like a lot of effort from the engine, we made it over! The drive home was less eventful, but still fun. :)