On Sunday my lil sis and I drove down to Hanksville to meet up with my Pa who had gone to a family reunion earlier that weekend. We got there and all jammed into his truck and took off for Lake Powell. We arrived at the parking lot and decided to just camp in the camp ground since we don't boat on Sundays. We fixed a stealer dinner of steaks. As we sat around the table talking about life my dad discovered that the spiderwebs he'd been playing with with his bare feet was actually home to a HUGE black widow. So I ran and got the camera and Marie fully freaked out and my Dad attempted to kill the spider.
After we were sure the spider was in fact deader then dead we all went to bed.
Monday morning we got up and launched the boat around 10am. While my pa was parking the boat Marie and I were sitting in the boat when I realized it was over heating so I turned it off. When my dad appeared on the ramp we turned the boat on and went and got him. It continued to over heat so my dad thought it'd be a smart thing to force water into the engine by going fast. This plan in fact backfired and caused the engine to hydro-lock (meaning nothing in the engine would turn). At this point my dad looked at Marie and I and told us to get our life jackets on and swim the boat the mile to shore. We did.
By the time we got to the shore it was about 11am. My dad tinkered on the engine for several hours. We had lunch and Marie and I sat in the sun for a bit, played cards, read Harry Potter and helped my dad out. After lunch my dad realized he didn't have the proper tool so he took off for a mile hike to the store on top of the hill to buy the tool. Around 3pm my dad had decided he fixed the problem. So we pulled out from the shore and got about a mile out when the engine started to sputter and it in face died. So once again Marie and I jumped in the lake and swam the boat another mile back to shore. My dad once again tinkered for about another two hours and then we tried again. We went out around 5pm. This run was going well. My dad was doing all the proper tests and the boat was passing them.
For the idle test I asked my dad to drop me off at the bathroom. When I came back the boat once again sputtered and died. So guess who swam it in another mile. Yup Marie and me. Marie and I are now on our 3rd mile of swimming the boat to shore. We were a bit tuckered out at this point.
My dad tinkered some more. AFter another two hours (its 7pm now) my dad gave up and we decided to swim it back to the ramp. The ramp was at this point two miles away. Marie and I jumped in the Lake again but this time the wind was against us. We were able to hold the boat steady with our swimming but we didn't make any progress. My dad decided we'd have to walk the boat around the shore. So Dad and I got on our sandals and strapped up. Marie didn't have any sandals so she just had to bear the pain of the rocks. We walked it 2 miles around the shore going through sand and rocks, and big bushes full of HUGE spiders. It was probably the worst part of the whole trip. The sad thing was no one offered to help us. Tons of people watched the three of us struggle with the boat. One boat actually drove right next to us not saying a word. That is very unusual for Lake Powell.
Anyway we got the boat on the trailer around 8:30pm. We packed up quickly and drove back to Hanksville to grab some Stan's Shakes before camping out that night.
We arrived home Tuesday afternoon.
Pretty sure it was the most memoriable and shortest Lake Powell trip i'll ever go on.
I'm glad to be in the family I'm in tho. We all remained smiling and laughing at the ridicuoulness of our situation. We never yelled at each other or got real upset throughout the whole ordeal.
2 comments:
LOL, I remember many times we had to swim our boat back to shore, too . . . hahaha! It's funny, how moments like that seem to be the most memerable. Especially if you're with your family.
It is a good thing you and Marie are in such great shape! That is SO funny! Glad you kept your senses of humor.
Post a Comment