Lake Powell

So, we headed down to Lake Powell on the 22nd of August. We went to Hanksville that day and spent the night. The next morning we headed down to the lake and launched the boat. Tony's uncle Bill brought his boat as well. And Jo and Bill had rented a house boat for us all. There were 5 families in all. Us, Jo & Bill(aunt & uncle), Justin & Sherie(cousins), Monica & Trevor(cousins) and Leah & Eric(cousins). Including ours, there were 7 kids. We had a really good time. Nobody was seriously injured or sunburned. Man we are good!
So here are the boats:

Bill's: with Justin & Monica on board

Ours, in Hanksville:

The House Boat:

The kids, big & little, had a lot of fun with the slide. If you look at the picture above, you can see that it is quite a drop from the end of the slide to the water.

Here's Eliot:

Gracie:

TJ:

Leah:

Justin & Keaton: ("Do it again", Keaton kept saying)

Trevor & Eliot:

Leah & Montana:

So now you've seen still shots...how about some video? Here are 3 of the slide.

This is Justin & Keaton:

This is Gracie:

And this is TJ:

As you know, our boat is new, so we have been waiting for the license, just like you do on a car. It had not yet arrived when we headed to Powell. It didn't take long for the Coast Guard to spot us and pull us over! He was actually really nice. Our temporary had even expired! But alas, nothing had come, so what are we to do? He gave us a little lesson on how to put them on when they do come, and discussed on board requirements with us. He then thanked us for having the kids in life vests and sent us on our way.


Okay, let's move on to the boating action. We had a ton of fun watching everyone get up, try tricks, and fall down. LOL! Most of you know that I have a hard time driving the boat constant enough to pull a person up. This trip was no different. However, I did get Tony up on the wake board the first day!!! And, thanks to Leah, I have proof!

Woo Hoo!!! Do you see that?!? Here he is again!

Alright, moving on...this is Eric on ski's:

And here is Bill getting up on his new wake board:
And here are Gracie & TJ. I don't know what they are talking about, but you could caption this picture so many ways. I think it is so dang cute!
Here is Leah with Eliot on the left & Montana on the right. Eliot likes to go fast...just ask her! Don't you just love the smiles?

Tony has a lot of fun chucking me around on the tube. Hey, works for me...I have fun. However, I never have pictures because I'm flying and Tony is driving crazy. So, here we finally have some cool pictures. The second one shows me catching some air.

Here is Leah getting ready to try out the ski's behind Bill's boat:
And here is Justin on our wake board. Him and Trevor were the jumpers.
Unfortunately I don't have a pic of Justin jumping with me. But here is one of Trevor:

And here is Monica catching some air on the knee board.

Sherie tried out the knee board but.......

she liked being tossed around on the tube better. So much fun!

Okay, out of the water for a bit. During one day, we visited Hole-in-the-Rock, and the Rainbow Bridge.


Hole-in-the-Rock...for those who don't know, there is a crack basically in the Mountain. And a pretty steep slide/cliff on the Powell side of it. The Mormon pioneers lowered horses, cattle, wagons, etc down this cliff, in order to shorten their journey. This was done in January 1880. It was a 3/4 mile hike up to the top, which Justin and Sherie tackled. So, see the "crack"? Can you imagine? Not me!


After Hole-in-the-Rock, we headed to Rainbow Bridge. We had to walk about 3/4 of a mile to it. When we got there, we saw a foot print, and a ranger was waiting to tell us a story.


So we all sat down to listen.

The story goes like this: There were 2 Paiute Indian boys playing around one day, chasing lizards and when you grab a lizard by the tail, it's tail breaks off, giving it a chance to escape. They thought this was pretty fun. They grabbed one lizard however, who's tail did not break off, but it managed to wiggle out of their grasp. Then it turned and took on a defensive stance. The boys laughed but took a step back. Suddenly the lizard grew to be just huge. The boys started running, but the lizard was so big it could cover a lot of ground faster than them. So they asked the "Sky Father" for help. The "Sky Father" told them that he would make them a rainbow to climb to the other side of the canyon and escape. When the boys got to the rainbow, it was gaseous, and the just passed through it. They told the "Sky Father" that this wasn't going to work. So the "Sky Father" said he would turn the rainbow to stone, with hand and foot holes for them to climb with. The boys started climbing and at the top chanced a glace back and saw that the giant lizard was able to climb the rainbow as well, with the hand and foot holes. Again, they asked for help from the "Sky Father". He made them a deal. If they would quit pulling tails of lizards, he would help them. They promised, and the "Sky Father" turned the lizard to stone on the side of the Rainbow where he was climbing.

See it on the left side there?

Here is me and Gracie & TJ, at the bridge. TJ was tired of walking...doesn't he look happy? LOL

Afterward, we headed back to the house boat. Bill's boat is a jet boat, and ours in an in board/out board. Bill goes a lot faster. As we tried to keep up with him on the way down, we burned a lot of fuel. We decided that we better run at the speed where we could get the best economy, on the way back. We hit empty on the gauge WAY to early. But we made it on the last of the fumes. In fact it was so empty, that after we filled it up, the boat kept dying on us, because there was air in the fuel line. We had to bleed it off, and voila...we were running again. So much excitement! We made it on sheer hope from me and Tony, Monica and Sherie. Trevor thought it was funny and kept telling us we weren't going to make it. We showed him the power of hope! So there! lol It was actually pretty dang fun wondering if we were going to make it. Is that weird?

Okay, are you ready to get back into the water?
At our home base the 2nd through last night, we had quite the private swimming area. On one occasion most everyone swam across our "pool" to the other side. Here is a view pretty much zoomed out as far as I could go. See those dots? Those are people.

a little closer view:

Jo & Bill on their way over there:

Tony & TJ on their way back.

While they were over there, they did a little "cliff" jumping.

Here is Justin, followed by TJ. You may want to turn the volume down a lot, because I was yelling quite loud so they could hear me.

And here is one of just TJ jumping. Brave little kids we all have.

Jo and Bill brought a floating island, which kids and adults had a lot of fun with.

We brought some big squirt guns, which got broken before we got to play with them. Everyone made do however, and made them work, sort of. Here is TJ shooting at Trevor & Eliot. They were having a bit of a "war".

Here is Trevor "attacking" TJ! Can you believe the abuse? Okay, it was hilarious.


Eric & Montana brought fishing poles. Of course ever kid wanted to try out Montana's pole. She was very nice and let everyone have a turn. They all caught some HUGE fish!

Eric:

Montana:

TJ:

Okay, Eric actually did catch a big one.

Justin was spear fishing and he caught one. But I don't have that picture with me either. I'll upload it later.
At night, we plaid cards, and Jo brought some leather for the kids to tool! They loved it.

Here is me with the kids, up top, playing cards.

And here we all are tooling leather.

During one day, we traveled to "Defiance House". Apparently they call it that because the petroglyphs depict someone being defiant??? I'm not sure. Anyway, it is an Indian home. We attempted the hike, but I was so tired at that point, and it was WAY hot! So Tony and I turned around at the bottom of it. But Gracie went all the way. She took the camera and got some great pictures. Thanks to Justin & Eric for taking her with them.

Here is a picture of the Petroglyph:

And Gracie, Eric & Justin inside and outside the structure.

We slept on top of the house boat, because it was just TOO HOT to sleep in the rooms. There was a slight, or huge wind every night. Thank heaven, because I don't think we would have slept a wink if there hadn't been.

We had a lot of fun. Thanks to Jo & Bill for all their work in organizing it and buying the food. It was very enjoyable. We are already talking about next time. It was fun to spend the time with everyone.

Here is a slide show of a bunch of other pictures. I realize this blog is huge, but we were down there for 5 days, and there were 6 cameras. So, there is tons to talk about and show. I have tons more actually, but we'll stop it here.