The Grubers: Lake Powell 2013

Last year was the first year Jason and I did not go to Lake Powell since we started dating, and that was because Charlie had just been born. This year, we really didn’t want to miss out. Jason’s friend, Richard, was spending another summer working at Lake Powell and was putting on another family and friend houseboating event. Since he works there he gets great connections for renting boats and houseboats...it’s basically just paying the insurance on them each day. Last year, Kamilla also worked down there and didn’t use her houseboat rental, so they let her cash in on it this year. That meant we had two houseboats!

My parents were nice enough to watch Charlie for us, so Jason and I hit the road for Lake Powell on Tuesday night (September 24th). We should have arrived there at 11 PM, but thanks to a disconnection to our phone’s GPS, we missed a turn and didn’t realize it until an hour and a half later. What tipped us off was the fact that we were driving towards the big dipper...which indicated we were driving north for awhile. By the time we were able to pull off the freeway into civilization and buy a physical map (what?), we were twenty minutes out of Richfield. We pulled out the map and I instantly thought, “How do you read this thing? Where is the search button?” So pathetic! Finally, we found our road on the map, but we also found some free wi-fi from a motel nearby and pulled it up on our GPS again. However, it did feel nice to have the physical map in case something happened to the GPS again. So we drove another hour and a half back to the point where we should have turned. That meant a total delay of three hours! Rather than pulling in at 11 PM, we pulled in at 2 AM! Yeah, frustrations were high. When we pulled in, we found Rich and Kamilla’s camper and fell quickly to sleep.

The next morning, Richard and Dan picked us up from the docks and took us to the houseboat camp (another perfect spot, thanks Rich!). The family had already been there since Saturday, so we were some of the late-comers. We brought stuff for camping on the beach, but thanks to Dan (he was leaving that day), he offered us his room. I think that was the first time we have gotten to sleep in one of the rooms on the houseboat. It has always been sleeping on the top or sleeping in a tent on the beach. It was super nice!

Arrived just in time for the famous Tadje rice pudding breakfast!

This year, Richard surprised us with some fun new toys. The most popular and unique was the Aquaskipper! Basically you hold on to the device, push off from the houseboat, and glide on the water using pumping motions from your arms and legs. A seemingly simple task proved to be quite difficult as you had to keep a constant momentum and balance. It took dozens of tries before being able to go further than a few yards. Richard was a pro at it, of course. And Jason was very impressive as well. I gave it a few tries, but wasn’t quite dedicated enough to it because of the exhausting effort required once you sink into the water. You have to catch a rope that is thrown to you and be dragged back in. It is either that, or try to swim with the thing yourself. That would be my only complaint about the Aquaskipper. It doesn’t seem like they got it quite right as far as getting back up again.

Richard's brother on the Aquaskipper

Jason

A look at how it works

The weather this year was a lot colder than it ever has been. The water never really felt warm enough to want to jump in. It was more of a pain...only done when necessary. That is really too bad, since normally it feels like bath water. Alli and Parker Reading also joined the trip, arriving the day after us. Alli had never been to Powell, so it was kind of too bad that she came at a time that was so cold and uncharacteristic of our beloved Powell. The air was just chill and there were times that there was a cold wind. Not ideal! But even with the cold weather, we still had a blast. We enjoyed wakeboarding, Aquaskipping, and jetskiing. It was my first time ever jetskiing, and it was super fun. I just wish I hadn’t been so cold or else I could have ridden for longer. After about 15 minutes, my lips were blue and my body was shivering to the point of exhaustion. Another time, perhaps.

Jason on the jetski

We also had fun going on a hike to some old ruins, kayaking, and fishing (mostly Jason and Parker). The girls had more down time reading and laying out. We also had fun cooking meals when it was our turn, having long talks around the nightly campfire, and eating lots of goodies and s’mores.