Craig's blog

Today was our last full day at Lake Powell. We woke up to a few clouds which was different from the 0 clouds we’d seen the previous days. I double checked the weather from a number of sources and they all said sunny and very hot (101 degrees). It took an hour and a half (again) to rent the power boats, but again it was worth it. We drove around to the dam (which we don’t need to do again – not much to see) by antelope marina (again not worth seeing, but there is a floating restaurant that we didn’t stop at) and then around to Navajo canyon. I really wanted to go down that canyon, and we did for about 15 minutes but the kids wanted to start tubing. We started tubing and realized the water was much rougher than a couple of days ago so we decided to head out of the canyon to see if it got better. It didn’t, but that meant that we didn’t get to go very far down the canyon. However, what we did see was amazing. Stunning high walls of red sandstone. We tubed some and then looked for a lunch spot. We found a perfect little protected area with just enough beach to beach both boats. We had rocks to climb on, a rock overhang to eat under, a lagoon to swim in with islands to swim to and play on and an infinite supply of skipping rocks. We could have stayed there all day.

After lunch we did a bunch more tubing and Catherine tried (and succeeded) to water ski. About 3:45 we started to head back (the boats are due back at 5:00). It had been dark and threatening all day, and we had been seeing some lightning in the distance since about 2:00. When we got about a mile from the marina it was about 4:15 so we decided we should do some last minute tubing and skiing. It started getting windy and we decided to head back to the dock. Just as we started to go in, it got really, really windy and started raining really hard. The rain drops felt like little rocks pelting us. The waves got huge. Watching the other power boat it looked like I was watching Gilligan’s Island as the boat plowed through the waves. The kids got pretty scared (especially Jessie), but we made it back fine. Instead of a 3 minute ride, it was about a 10 minute odyssey. I’ve been kicking myself for not taking a video of it. When we got back to the dock it was calming down and 5 minutes later it was completely over. It was all pretty exciting and has made for lots of fun story telling already. Tonight we bbq’d some steak and now we have to pack up to move on. Tomorrow it’s off to Bryce Canyon. The kids are pretty sad to be leaving, which is great. Lake Powell is awesome.