Trip Number Two

There's only one word to describe trip number two to Powell this year.

ADVENTURE.

I decided that unless I share what happened, you wouldn't know why it was an adventure. I will warn you - this will most likely be a drawn-out post that may be longer than necessary. Please feel free to skip over it if  you'd like.

Chris and I have never been camping at Lake Powell before. Danielle, a good friend and former co-worker and her husband go every year, and asked us to come. And, since Lake Powell is the greatest place on earth, we jumped at the chance. There were eight of us: Danielle and Nick, Chris and me, and a few of Nick's friends; Ryan and Dan, Adam and his girlfriend Katie. We drove down to Page, AZ on Wednesday evening, arriving about 2:30 AM. We slept in the Walmart Parking lot. Nothin' but fun, as I'm sure you could guess.

We got up, went shopping for food, while the boys went to find a spot to set up camp. The plan was for Nick to come get us after finding a camp site, unloading, and coming back. Little did he know that he left the key to his car with Chris, which was unknown to either of them... so he got all the way back to the dock (45 minute boat ride) to find that he couldn't come get us anyway.

It was maybe three hours later when Danielle got a call from Nick. He had left his phone in the car (which he didn't have the key to). Luckily, we had 3 other people with us and two cars. We drove down to the dock and went out to the campsite. A few of us stayed while Danielle and Nick grabbed the key from Chris and made the trip back to the dock, just to get their stuff and turn back around. Confused yet? Me too.

After some trouble getting everyone there, we finally got to get in the water. It was perfect - it felt so good! We finished setting up camp, swam, etc. while waiting for the rest of them. The whole first half of the day was gone, but we went wake boarding that night, had dinner, everything was great. That was Thursday. 

We found the perfect camping spot; it was too shallow for a houseboat and it was back in its own little canyon. Our own little oasis - It was beautiful.

Our humble camp :)

From the beach

Walking on water?  This was probably 30 feet from the beach. 

You could walk out into the water forever!

Chris being macho :)

Friday was a great, we woke up early and played all day. I got up on a wakeboard on my second attempt (for about two or three seconds), and that was fun. That doesn't mean I didn't walk away with some nice battle wounds in the form of bruises and blisters, though. Everyone else did awesome.

My weak attempt at wake boarding

Don't exactly look like a natural, do I? 

I did get up, though, which is more than I thought I'd do.

Chris

Nick

We decided to go explore the canyon and go cliff jumping after that, and found a few great places to jump. FYI - I just learned that this is now illegal, due to the deaths caused from it every year there.

Chris, contemplating the jump

Jumping

He survived!

Some of the boys in mid-jump

The smaller one looked more appealing to me...

Chris and I, mid-jump

We finished the day off with the molecule. Because of the wind blowing all day, it made this run the most wild run I have yet experienced on the molecule. Fun, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had brain damage from the impact I made with the water when I was flipped through the air. Repeatedly.

The boys hanging on for dear life

By the end of the day, we were all dead. Miraculously, we were all awake until about 2:00 AM playing games. I say miraculous because At about 2:15, it started raining. No biggie, right? We just re-adjusted some things in our campsite, set things under the awnings, etc. We underestimated the weather just a bit. The wind came next, in a gigantic gust that swallowed our camp, sending our tent flying (yes, flying) up and away about 40 yards, with everything inside, and busted two legs on our biggest awning. 

Lovely.

Forget going to bed when none of could move as it was. I wish I could have taped it all - eight people scramble in all different directions, trying to salvage our belongings as they were quickly scattered everywhere in the wind. Everything was covered in sand. 

After holding down the posts on what was left of the awning, we moved all of our stuff into the smaller one. And there went our organization. We hadn't a clue where anything was after that.

This is all of our stuff, crammed under the smaller awning

We were up for maybe an hour longer. The wind lasted just a little while longer, but getting our tent set back up and more secure (although it was already held down with rocks at every side) took time, as well as securing the camp with every large boulder and rope we could muster. Danielle and Nick slept in our tent that night. It was a snug fit - but everyone slept like a rock, I assure you.

The next morning...

Nick and Danielle

Chris and me

Our camp, the next day

After Friday night's windy and rainy episode, it figured that Saturday would be beautiful. When we woke up, there were a few clouds in the sky, but it was nothing short of a perfect day. We went Wake boarding again (well, not me - I would have been worthless from the day before) and three people went home early.  Nick took them into the dock while Danielle, Chris and I stayed. It was incredibly hot, but it was getting windy (uh-oh). 

Cue the clouds... 

This picture definitely doesn't do it justice. 

Those clouds were thick - and they were coming our direction fast.

About an hour later, the rain started. We were praying it would stop there - we could deal with that, certainly. Oh no. Then came the wind. Danielle and I each took a post on the smaller awning and Chris went to hold down the tent. We were like that for about 20-25 minutes or so, then switched. 

This is a picture from inside the tent during the rain.

Danielle and I sought cover from the storm inside the tent, which proceeded to come down and in on all sides, forcing us to push it back and hold it down. 

It was way worse than this picture, but that time certainly 

wasn't the time to document what was happening.

Meanwhile, Chris was holding the awning down. All it took was one huge gust of wind, and that one snapped, too. It went flying over his head, and it was all he could do to grab it and hold onto it like a kite, before it slamming down on the sand behind him. I'm not sure how long the wind went on, but when Nick came back with the boat, we decided we better leave that night (a day early). It was a quick decision - we packed everything up within about an hour and a half, and cruised (was fast as we could without killing the poor boat - that thing was loaded) across the lake to the dock. We made it just after dark, about 9:00.

We planned to just drive straight through and sleep at Nick's parent's house (who owns the

boat), but at about 12:30 it was too much. We were exhausted, and we were going to crash... fast. We made it to Kanab, and began our search for a hotel. Could you believe it - at LEAST 20

hotels in that town, and there was NOT ONE vacancy? The ENTIRE town was booked. We drove around to everything that was open. Nothing. Nick had the genius idea of heading to the city park for the night, and that's exactly what we did. Nick and Dan slept on the grass, Chris slept in the boat, and Danielle and I stayed in the car. 

A good seven hours later, we were on the road again. We made it to Nick's parents' house, where they were kind enough to let us use their shower, and fed us a steak dinner. We watched some of the Olympics with his family, and we were on our way. 

I can't tell you how it felt to sleep in a bed that night.

The next few pictures are just random ones snapped throughout the trip.

Chris driving the boat... lookin' good.....

Me and Danielle

Chris relaxing at camp

The girls: Katie, me and Danielle

On the way back from a trip to the marina. 

I had a popsicle that turned my tongue orange. :)

This was Chris's hair pretty much the entire trip. Sexy, eh?

Being a dork

Nick, Chris and Danielle

Me and Danielle. We had such a fun time! 

Thanks again, Danielle and Nick - we're excited for next year! 

Can you believe it?!

And of course, the scenery is always 

unbelievable - even in a storm.

Every night, the moon was full and bright. This picture does not even 

give you an idea of how beautiful it was - it was perfect.

These videos are from our one good day of playing. The swim competition is from when we made the boys swim from the cliff they just jumped from to the boat. It wasn't very far, but they acted like it was a big deal. So we made them race.