Adventures at Lake Powell

Only four days after returning home from girls camp I had to repack again for Lake Powell. Aaron was originally going down with us but was sent to Chicago for a work conference. So Josh and I travelled down with my parents in my dad's new truck on the 18th of June.

We left around 6am and got there in the heat of the day. We took a more scenic route to Wahweap Bay which took us longer but it was beautiful. As we got to the lake we immediately launched the boat and began our journey. Coming from a cooler climate our bodies clearly had a difficult time adjusting. Only an hour after being on the boat my mom got really sick from the heat. We spent the rest of the day in the water and up against huge cliffs in the shade.

We stayed in a hotel in Page that was actually really nice. We had a suite which had a nice jacuzzi tub right next to the big screen t.v., a small kitchenette, bathroom and a separate bedroom with doors that closed it off. That evening our 'adventures' began. I was up all night cleaning throw up and diarrhea off everything. Joshua got extreme head stroke only those few hours we spent on the boat. Needless to say the rest of the trip I dealt with diarrhea and a few bouts of sickness all over myself, the floors and our bed. All my energy was spent taking care of josh and making sure that he was getting enough fluids in his little run down body.

We still had an amazing time and he did considerably well with the situation he was in. We spent a lot of time site seeing, swimming and watching grandma and grandpa fish. It was so beautiful down there and we wish Aaron could have been with us. One one of the days we travelled to Rainbow Bridge where we had a big hike ahead of us in over 100 degree weather with the sand that is so hot it burns your skin (sounds fun eh...) We got to the arch where we took a couple pictures and then nearly ran back down to the water. Josh was such a big boy and wanted to hike the whole thing by himself. Towards the end of the 100+ degree hike he was getting very weary and so we hurried to cool him off in the water. Nearly the whole time we were down there the water was in the 80's. Sometimes there was no immediate cooling down once you jumped in the water but it was still so nice. We did find a nice canyon we went up where we found the waters to be in the high 70s.

All in all we had a wonderful time. I have always and will always love going to Lake Powell, it brings back so many childhood memories and I love being on the boat out in the middle of nowhere. The surroundings are so beautiful and there is so much to see. The last adventure of our 4 day trip was our 12 hour travel home. Yep 12+ hours! We went out onto the lake in the morning and then left around 1:00pm. We didn't get home until 1:00am. On our way home we had multiple tire problems. We only had 1 spare tire and 3 bad tires on the boat trailer. We stopped half way to get something to eat at Wingers while my dad rotated the tires and changed one of the tires out for the spare.

We thought we were going to be ok when we got about 3 miles out of Payson and one of the tires blew. Yep, it was serious and you can see by the picture I put on here. It completely bent the boat trailer, pulled out all the wiring for the tail lights and caused a few other problems. My dad could not remove the tire and then put another on (we didn't have another spare anyway). So here we are on the darkened freeway on a Saturday night with hardly much of a median to pull off in. Our only option was to try and get a hold of someone to help us while we slowly chugged down 3+ miles to the next exit. It took us forever as we slowly moved and had to frequently stop as the tire and rim would start smoking. We did make it eventually and my dad was able to call a neighbor that had to travel 45 minutes to where we were. All in all they did make it and brought tools to hammer the trailer back to its somewhat original shape, they put a new tire on and we headed home.

We were extremely blessed and taken care of on our journey home. Although it took us 12 hours Josh slept soundly in the car while all of this was happening. Literally minutes after we pulled off the freeway into a safe place as we waited for someone to help us a high speed car chase went flying down the freeway on the same side we were travelling on. We sat and watched as this crazy red car sped down each side of the freeway with at least 30 police cars and helicopters everywhere. It was crazy! Defiantly a trip to remember :)