Lake Powell

After the usual catch-up yard work and related chores back home after our Uintahs trip we set out on our pilgrimage to beautiful Lake Powell for a week of R & R with Dave and Laurene. We have made this trip with few exceptions once every summer going back to about 1987. As I recall when we bought our first boat in Salt Lake City we didn't even have a vehicle prepared to tow it home and Dave Gardner was called upon to provide this service. Our old Coachmen motor home first provided this service then it was our GMC custom van and for at least the last 12 years it has been our green GMC pickup. Our first boat was a 20 foot Starfire and we bought our current 22 foot Larson in 2001. Over the years we have been with many good friends. They included Darren, Dave's sister Denise and her husband Kenny Petersen and their family, Dave's brother Ron and his wife Megan and their family, Kenny's parents Earl and Avis Petersen and Laurene's sister, nephew and mother. We have also taken our children including Lance, Leslie and Lindsy and their close friends. We did not have the boat for Laurie, Leon and LaRinda before they left home but we did have one big family reunion at Lake Powell including a rented house boat in the summer of 1997 that was great fun. As for this year we went later than usual since we and the Gardners have now all retired. It was a bit cooler than usual but that was actually quite nice for a change. The water was still as warm as it was in the years that we vacationed in June. We also found that there were still more boats on the lake than we expected for this late in the season. The lake level was a little higher than it has been for quite a few years at about 3634 feet. We left on September 5th and returned on September 13th. We had a drizzling rain off and on the first day on the water but we were camped under a huge cave in Fiftymile canyon off the Escalante and had no problem. We also camped in Dungeon Canyon, Oak Bay and Hall's Creek Bay. In Oak Bay we got to watch a nice fireworks display as two house boats competed, one just a few yards from where we were camped across a small island. We did a lot of relaxing, reading, swimming, canyon surfing, played pinochle and watched movies at night. Over the years we have taken thousands of pictures and I keep saying what could be new but each year it seems more beautiful than ever and we take some more. This year was no exception and we'll share a few.