My Town Monday: Lake Powell, AZ and UT

We're baaack! We had a FANTASTIC vacation on Lake Powell! We houseboated and speedboated, enjoyed water activities, grilled (I cooked carne asada, pollo asada, marinated chicken breasts, hamburgers and hot dogs), relaxed, played board games (I'm quite gifted at Apples to Apples!) and read (for me it was the brilliant Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson).

I actually relaxed. Which I realized I haven't done in a long time. I was so not ready to return home. (Although I did miss my internet.)

Before leaving, I paid a trip to my local Costco where the electronics guy looked over my misbehaving camera and pronounced the settings "all whacked out." Which he quickly righted. I guess the camera reset itself somewhere between its side falling off and the optician fixing it with two glasses' screws. It seem to be performing okay while we were away.

Okay. About Lake Powell. AMAZING scenery. It's like being IN the Grand Canyon. It's like being on another planet. Like the Charlton Heston version of Planet of the Apes.

Here's a photo from the movie. Thank you to Charles Gramlich of Razored Zen for pointing out that Planet of the Apes was filmed here.


Sadly, I discovered that I am not a crack water skiier. All those memories I have of myself zipping in and out of the wake on one ski are probably seen through rose-colored goggles. HOWEVER, I did have fun tubing!

The water temperature was perfect at about 80 degrees. We ended up mooring on a small sandy beach down Last Chance Canyon. People-wise, there was just us. Just us amidst all that incredible sandstone. We also spotted a fox, some geckos, red ants, gnats and a mouse.

Despite the heat, the kids played on the rocks.





Child #4 and I went exploring for animal tracks and interesting plants.

A couple of totally random vacation thoughts:

Biodegradable shampoo is not my friend. By the end of the week, my hair looked and felt like sheep's wool.

Next time, I'll go fishing. I bet you never thought I'd say that Travis Erwin!

For links to the other MTM participants, please head over to our My Town Monday blog which was set up by the lovely and talented Clair Dickson.

Vacation!

We are driving SIX HUNDRED miles tomorrow! All the way to Lake Powell.

And a little about Lake Powell: It is a man-made reservoir along the Colorado River. When full, it stores over 24,000,000 acre feet of water. This is a very large lake. Most of Lake Powell is in Utah, but some of it is in Arizona. Which means you need fishing licenses from two states. Luckily, I am not an avid fisherwoman. And you don't need any license to read and relax!

We'll be boating and hiking and staying on a houseboat. I THINK it's the houseboat below. To be honest, I've had very little to do with planning this vacation. Thank you to Mark, Keith and Eileen who organized it all. Including meals. I can hardly wait to see what I'll be eating!


Lake Powell is very beautiful and Grand Canyon-ish with steep sandstone walls.



My children are interested in knowing if I plan to water ski (a ski boat comes with the houseboat). "Of course!" I answer because I can be brave from San Diego. I'm sure if I do waterski, I will look exactly like the women in the photo below



I won't have internet access. Editor Wendy says this is a good thing and that I can use some time unconnected. I don't know about that; I'm already having chills and shakes.

So, I'll see you in a week. Be good. Have fu!

sources;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Powell