Andrew, Greg, Lara, Whitney and yes, moi, all managed to get up on the wakeboard for the first time....
Abbie and Wesley both got up on ski's for the first time (with Lara's help in the water)...
we also had a LOT of wipeouts....Andrew's was the most spectacular, though Greg came in a close second place....
We kept the houseboat right under the butte on Gunsight Canyon - it was an amazing spot to stay.....what a view every morning:)
We got taken on a quick tour around the lake one afternoon by Capt Rusty who showed us dinosaur tracks...really they are dinosaur tracks.....apparently:)......you are looking at the underside of tracks in the roof of an overhang that were exposed after a layer of rock right under them fell into the lake......the image right below is where the overhang is located - you're not going to notice it if you didn't have someone showing you - it's somewhere down Last Chance.
The great and infamous Steve Ward (one half of the Steve Ward and Stan Jones Guides/Authors to the best Map for the Lake) took us around to some of his "must see" spots on the Lake on another day. He is definitely the man to go with - he appears to know every nook and cranny of that place (and probably does after spending the last 40 years exploring it!!). I think we got to see everything worth seeing (that was possible in one day!) We got to see Rainbow Bridge (which I can't remember without feeling so bugged that my camera battery died before I got a single photo - luckily the nice, though long winded, Park Ranger Doug took a couple of family pics for us so we have something to show!)
He also showed us a few cool arches....the "Eye Arch" and "La Gorce Arch"
and also down the Esclante River Arm he showed us the Three Roof Indian ruins.....that were just perched smack in the middle of another pretty sheer rock face.....nope we didn't climb up to them:)
and of course Hole in the Rock - which is a shortcut that the early pioneers had actually used to cross the Colorado River (a 2000ft drop in 1/2mile!!).... needless to say, we didn't attempt this either.....although there were a couple of people specks who had made it about halfway up!
Steve also navigated the tight waterways of Cathedral Canyon without even touching the wall with the boat....so basically lots of cool fun stuff:) We ended up going to a similar canyon by ourselves the following day (West Canyon) so I could get a few photos.....(and realised how hard it actually was to get the boat through those Canyon walls!!)
ok I meant I got photos of the canyon but she was too cute not to take a pic or few:) These canyons were amazing - it would look like we were at the end of the canyon, that there was no possible way it could continue and somehow there was a twist and turn....it went on forever!! Amazing!
We gazed stars at night and found venus (we think) briefly before it disappeared behind the big rock....
and the moon was out big and bright almost every night....
except a couple of cloudy stormy nights - but as the storm cleared one night it was beautiful outside...
and the sun came up bright and beautiful every morning (imagine that!)
We jumped off various rocks....
though Carly needed a little help getting up on the rock in the first place!
and we jumped out of the boat to swim and cool off every opportunity we could... (Carly's favorite thing to do!)
fought over who got to/had to (depending on the day) hold the orange flag....
....played lots of fun games; Catan, Farkel, Uno, 3 crowns,....and had lots of good food (thanks to Lara's planning!)
The kids enjoyed going off the slide,
kneeboarding.....
kayaking,......
tubing.....(Amelia loved that Daniel jumped in to be with her when she fell off!)
and riding around on the jet ski's....which Amelia has a real flair for:)
and of course the boys had to show off to us newbies their jumping/getting up one-handed skills on the wakeboard (I am a few years off getting to that point...ok there's a possibility I might never get there....)
We thought we were home free with no serious injuries other than the cleansing power of lake water through your mouth/nose/ears until the last day when Andrew twisted his knee trying to keep up with his boys wakeboarding skills and then Lara had to top it all with stabbing a knife through her hand while pitting an avocado for dinner on the last night (she has a genuine sounding explanation!) The dads were off on the jet skis and she was spurting blood and did all the First Aid training come rushing to mind?? .......No!!! We somehow managed to do the right thing, despite feeling a little out of control and stopped the bleeding. Obviously, Lara got to the hospital and got things cleaned/fixed up - she asked if I'd taken a photo of the knife and blood...sorry to say I didn't - cleaning it all up was grossing me out enough:) Feeling better the following morning....:)
