Powelling Around

First! Will someone please hurry over and SLAP me for that post title!

In Utah and surrounding states we are known for our amazing sandstone canyons. Many are national parks. Zions! Arches! Capital Reef is one I've spent a lot of time hiking and swimming in. These are crazy beautiful creations of nature and I never get tired of hiking, exploring and discovering for the bazillionth time each little nook and cranny of brilliantly colored canyon, dry, sandy riverbed floors enclosed by, 100 foot straight up on either side, rock walls.

Pictures (mostly pirated from friends cameras) are of me and my boys and the many friends that have joined us at Capital Reef over the years. I include them so you'll have a picture of how how incredible these parks are and then be able to imagine how cool they are when you add water. Just Add Water... now that would have been a good post title.



One of these canyon areas, carved by the Colorado River, is Glen Canyon which at some point (really not in the mood to research a Utah history lesson here) was filled with water when they dammed the river so that desert states like Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California would have water available year round. This huge man-made lake, well known to folks in the Western US as Lake Powell is named after a one armed explorer (really, he had one arm).

Lake Powell is a hugely popular recreation site and we have some friends who have a house boat. They have asked us many times to come down and hang out with them so, over fall break we went. Neither the other Mom nor I brought our camera so you'll have to imagine how fun it was and how great we all looked in our swimsuits four days straight.

I worked up until the day we left so trip preparations, which usually for me include, multiple changes of clothing for every family member , any food and drink item imaginable, 5 or more preparation only trips to stores, a spotlessly clean(in case we die and someone has to go through it) house, all the laundry done and a valiant effort to lose 50lbs and get into Olympic triathlete shape all in one marathon 24 hour rush the day before we leave, were severely limited.

Yes, of course, Adorable Hubby and the boys love my OCD trip preparations...OK! I'm lying! Preparation for this trip was exactly their style. We made it to Costco with no menu plan carefully written to include food preferences, allergies and favorites of each person in the travel party, with alternative meal items and specialty foods. We bought some stuff! We went to a football game, came home found a couple coolers, went to bed got up 45 minuets before we were leaving, yelled at everybody to put on a swimsuit grab a blanket and some pajamas, piled in the suburban and pulled out.

Fortunately our hosts were terrific and didn't mind that between #5, #6 and #7 there were two pajama pants and 1 shirt, and that #3 wore Underarmor underwear as a swimsuit, I never did quite figure out if he didn't bring a swimsuit or just thought it was an acceptable option. They also didn't complain that there was no garlic in the Alfredo sauce even though I insisted that no floating marina store would be without garlic and that it would be worth the 45 minute trip.

We spent four days zipping over the lake, wind in our hair, soaking up the last rays of sun, swimming, eating, skinny dipping...uhhh chunky dunking, laughing, climbing up huge sand hills, making inappropriate sand shapes, eating, laughing, exploring, building rafts, eating, listening to bowel sounds, laughing and wondering why it had taken us so many years to get to Lake Powell.

Thanks to our Pals the Gardner family for being such terrific hosts, for finally getting us down to Lake Powell and for the best fall break ever,"We'll Powell around with you any time."

Really, really needing that slap right about now...