Our friends Jeff and Maja McMinn invited us to go stay on their houseboat with them on Lake Powell. Of course it was a family vacation so we took Makenna and Mason, and the McMinn’s brought there little ones: Ryan, Kaylee, and Taylor. The kids are near the same ages so they had a great time playing together.
The houseboat was at Bullfrog so from there we went upstream and stayed at one of McMinns favorite locations (I won’t say where in case it is a place they are trying to keep the crowds away from). Our first night was really interesting as a heavy rainstorm moved in and we were able to witness a display of Mother Nature’s power. Within a minute of the rain falling there were waterfalls everywhere on the cliff walls above us, it was incredibly beautiful but eerie. We knew we were safe on the boat but it was obvious that any living creature in the canyons or above the cliff walls was fighting for its survival. It made me realize just how quickly very dangerous
situations can occur.
We woke our second morning to the calm glassy waters, it was Sunday so it was a bit tempting, however we had already committed to not playing in the water on the Sabbath. We spent the day relaxing and took a boat ride to see some of the historical sites at lake Powell. We went to some Indian ruins called Defiance House. It was a short hike through a swamp and up a cliff, but well worth the effort. The ruins were really awesome and the kids loved seeing them. We had also planned to go see Hole in the Rock, and Rainbow bridge but the water got so choppy that we decided to go back to the house boat and relax some more. The rest of the week was time to play on the water. The mornings and evenings were reserved for waterskiing on the glassy waters, while the rest of the day we worked on our wake surfing, tubing and some wakeboarding. The kids all did great, Makenna at 8 years old did everything we did, she surfed (deep water start), wake boarded, slalom water skied (got up on only her 3 try), and of course did some tubing. Mason at 5 years old was really only interested in swimming the first few days, he started doing more tubing as the week went on and the last day he decided that he wanted to do everything, he got up waterskiing on his first attempt, and got up wakeboarding on his second attempt. Mason said something that I thought was really funny while we were there: it went something like this “you guys keep saying the water is glass; can you please tell me what glassy water entails?” We all had a good laugh and explained what our analogy meant; it’s kind of funny how we just assume people know what we are talking about. We also hiked Smith Fork slot canyon, I figure it wound up being 3-4 miles and was really cool, we saw all sorts of critters, thousands of tad poles, frogs, toads, lizards, and even a really strange snake. The hike was great but when we got back to our boat some Ravens had raided the boat, they opened some chips and spread them all over, they ate an entire bag of starburst candy and crapped all over the place.
The houseboat was at Bullfrog so from there we went upstream and stayed at one of McMinns favorite locations (I won’t say where in case it is a place they are trying to keep the crowds away from). Our first night was really interesting as a heavy rainstorm moved in and we were able to witness a display of Mother Nature’s power. Within a minute of the rain falling there were waterfalls everywhere on the cliff walls above us, it was incredibly beautiful but eerie. We knew we were safe on the boat but it was obvious that any living creature in the canyons or above the cliff walls was fighting for its survival. It made me realize just how quickly very dangerous
situations can occur.We woke our second morning to the calm glassy waters, it was Sunday so it was a bit tempting, however we had already committed to not playing in the water on the Sabbath. We spent the day relaxing and took a boat ride to see some of the historical sites at lake Powell. We went to some Indian ruins called Defiance House. It was a short hike through a swamp and up a cliff, but well worth the effort. The ruins were really awesome and the kids loved seeing them. We had also planned to go see Hole in the Rock, and Rainbow bridge but the water got so choppy that we decided to go back to the house boat and relax some more. The rest of the week was time to play on the water. The mornings and evenings were reserved for waterskiing on the glassy waters, while the rest of the day we worked on our wake surfing, tubing and some wakeboarding. The kids all did great, Makenna at 8 years old did everything we did, she surfed (deep water start), wake boarded, slalom water skied (got up on only her 3 try), and of course did some tubing. Mason at 5 years old was really only interested in swimming the first few days, he started doing more tubing as the week went on and the last day he decided that he wanted to do everything, he got up waterskiing on his first attempt, and got up wakeboarding on his second attempt. Mason said something that I thought was really funny while we were there: it went something like this “you guys keep saying the water is glass; can you please tell me what glassy water entails?” We all had a good laugh and explained what our analogy meant; it’s kind of funny how we just assume people know what we are talking about. We also hiked Smith Fork slot canyon, I figure it wound up being 3-4 miles and was really cool, we saw all sorts of critters, thousands of tad poles, frogs, toads, lizards, and even a really strange snake. The hike was great but when we got back to our boat some Ravens had raided the boat, they opened some chips and spread them all over, they ate an entire bag of starburst candy and crapped all over the place.
The trip was great, THANK YOU McMinn’s for inviting us on this wonderful adventure!
1 comment:
We had an awesome time with you guys! I think you summed things up very nicely. Do you want to write my blog for me. glad I can keep up with you on your blog.
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