Lake Powell 2010 Part 2

Okay, hold on tight! There a lot of photos coming up. The photos pretty much speak for themselves, but I do have to include some narration here and there. This was such a fun trip. We had the best time!

Hole-in-the-Rock is an amazing place where the pioneers came down to cross the Colorado River when they were asked to settle the San Piette area. It took a ton of preparation and work, but the pioneers brought 80 covered wagons down this steep, steep, steep crack. (For those who were at Regional Conference this morning listening to Elder Holland's talk, this is where he was talking about!)

As we boated up to get a better view of Hole-in-the-Rock, Mikey played "Come, Come Ye Saints" on the ipod for us. It was pretty moving.

Rainbow Bridge

Riley held up the Bridge so it wouldn't fall. Thanks, Roo!

Photos Mikey's dad took of Rainbow Bridge:

(Actually he took most of the photos in this blog post! . . . so I guess I better say, please don't copy them.)

The whole Crew: Michelle, Sydney, Heidi, Kerry, Ethan, Russ, Riley, Colleen, Mikey, & Karie

As we listened to the Park Ranger tell us about Rainbow Bridge, Sydney found a little Butterfly Friend.

The Ranger told us that Rainbow Bridge is so tall that the Statue of Liberty could fit underneath it! Wow!

I'll get the towels! Don't worry about me!

Adventures playing on the houseboat:

Sydney's expression every time she went down the slide:

Sydney telling the boat she wanted to go faster. I think her arm was glued on like that!

The cutest guy EVER!:

This was the forecast for the whole week, but other than windstorms at night, the weather was perfect . . .

. . . until our last night! We had the HUGEST lightening storm (which was awesome!) followed by a BIG rain storm.

We slept on top of the houseboat, which has a fabric cover over it and, though we also had a tarp on top of us while we slept, we still ended up soaked by the morning. This is our bed that we deserted at 6a.m.

The great part about rainstorms at Lake Powell, though, is that they result in WATERFALLS! :) Once there was a break in the rain, we all jumped in the boat and threw TLC's warning of "Don't go chasing waterfalls," out the window!

Heidi's special waterfall:

(This is also the same place we had our picture taken in the last post.)

So, chasing waterfalls was a great, fun adventure in and of itself . . . and then it started to rain again . . . and then we ran out of gas! We were just 1/2 mile away from the gas station, but stranded nonetheless. So, guess who came up with this handy-dandy S.O.S. signal? Me! :) And it worked! We had a couple boats pull up and help us out. Once we got back to the gas station, we had to document our distress signal:

We were so freezing from boating around and being stranded in the rain that when we got back to the house boat, we jumped in the lake to warm up. It was like a nice, warm bath.

And this is how the trip ended, with us packing up all of our wet towels and beds and heading home. Though the last day was pretty crazy, it was one of the funnest days at Lake Powell ever!

Lake Powell 2010 Part 1

I am so lucky to have married into a "Lake Powell Family." Mikey's sister, Michelle, has a houseboat down in Bullfrog and she's been kind enough to invite us every year since we've been married, and we've been kind enough to accept! Hehe! So here's the Lake Powell 2010 Crew:

Mikey, Karie, Sydney, Heidi, Kerry, Ethan, Russ, Colleen, Riley, and Michelle

This is us at the Halls Crossing Marina

And I have to note that Mikey and I took practically none of these pictures. We took our camera, but so did everyone else! By the time the trip was over, between all the cameras that went to Lake Powell, we had over 3,300 photos!! So most of the pictures here are curtesy of Mikey's parents. (And here's a great place to plug Mikey's dad's photo blog. He's a great photographer who just takes pictures for fun. Take a look!)

Moki Canyon

Our favorite "sand place" in Moki Canyon

Crusin' around

Hiking to the ruins in Forgotten Canyon

Relaxing in Smith Fork Canyon

Mikey and I discovered a great system for massaging each other's feet!

A couple members of the "Dare Devil Club" who swam over to a scary crevice in Iceberg Canyon

Lunch on the boat

This cave in Iceberg Canyon is one of my favorite places in Lake Powell. It looks really small, but it's been a lot bigger in previous years because the waterlevel was lower. I wish we had a waterproof camera to take inside because it was gorgeous. It opens up after you swim under the thresh hold. The water was really clear and looked bright, bright green. It was awesome!

Mikey and I take this photo of us by this cave every year.

Annie's Canyon

Grandpa Russ getting his toes painted. What a good sport!

The culprits!

Because the price of gas is so high on the lake, instead of moving the houseboat into a canyon, we just left it on the buoy field. It was really nice to not have to worry too much about the boat during the storms, because we had storms!

Mikey jumping off the top of the houseboat!

The "Frog Hike" in Smith Fork Canyon

The kids had a blast looking for these tiny froggies as we hiked. Once the kids caught themselves a frog, they were very protective of that frog! (We adults were having heart attacks on behalf of the frogs. Poor little guys.)

Our destination of the hike--this beautiful cave

And that covers Lake Powell Part 1! Stay tuned for more!