I invited Mark to come with us since it was the weekend, and the idea was we'd leave super early Saturday morning, play on the lake all day and go our separate ways Sunday morning. He was torn at first, but then decided to by a new bimini (cover) for his boat so we could have shade on the lake, and decided it would be fun.
I hadn't given myself much time to pack on Friday since I had been in a training all day, and even though I had a fairly thorough list and most of the clothes washed, things took much longer than I expected, and before we knew it we were still trying to do last minute stuff at 10pm when we were planning on getting up around 4am. So at some point I had to let go of my dream of leaving a perfectly complete to do list, a perfectly clean and organized house, and trust Mark to take care of the loose ends when he returns after the weekend.
The drive itself wasn't too bad, and I figured it would be an easy start for the kids. Only about 4-5 hours the first day, each of them in a different vehicle with the entire back seat to stretch out in. But when you took into consideration the slower drive with the boat, a few extra stops for bathroom breaks, and not knowing exactly where we were going when we got to the lake, it was already after noon before we managed to get the boat into the water.
And then we had one little surprise after another. The boat ramp was shallow, the parking was on gravel with very deep pits and potholes, the temperature was well over 100 degrees, the wind was strong and gusty, the marina was crowded and didn't rent the inner tubes we had wanted, our fruit and some snacks didn't handle the heat, and neither did we. I was afraid the kids were getting heat stroke and kept trying to get them to sip water. Kaelyn started getting sea sick, and by the time I got sunscreen on everyone, our faces at least were already burned.
Finally we got the boat cover up, which gave us a little shade, and we got out on the open water. Since we were so hot, we went to find a cove immediately so we could swim. It was really nice getting into the cold water and it looked like everyone was going to have fun, but then the headaches hit, and then I got seasick. Funny thing is - I had brought wristbands for me and Kaelyn just in case we needed them to drive through the mountains, but it never occured to me that we would need them on the lake, and I didn't bring them onto the boat. We always take them with us when we go out on the ocean, but since I've never gotten sick on a lake - even a rough one, it was the last thing I thought of here.
Instead of the calm, peaceful, desert lake I had imagined, we were contantly being hit with waves or wind from all sides. And no matter how much we drank, the sun found a way to dehydrate us. The mountains around the lake didn't look as beautiful as I'd expected. The one thing I noticed was how low the water was compared to the water lines on the land. It kind of gave me the feeling that the poor lake was evaporating to death. I had planned to just relax on the boat and notice the landscape, but we just kept getting tossed around. Finally, after it became apparent that I wasn't going to get better until I could lay down in a cool, still place for an hour or so, we finally decided to leave the lake and find a hotel. Thankfully, we had decided not to camp, because pulling together all that extra equipment would have taken too much time. And we wouldn't have done it anyway. The car registered 130 degrees when we finally left. Ugg!
Despite all of this, there were lots of nice things that happened. Like the fact that the hotel we had been thinking of staying at simply showed up on the road within minutes of leaving the marina. It had a beautiful view of the lake, and free wireless internet! After getting off the churning water, it only took me about an hour to recover, and we were all showered and on our way to dinner. We got to see the Las Vegas skyline on the way back, and now everyone is asleep. But me.
Tomorrow, our goal is to reach Grand Junction, Colorado. If we could make it all the way to Denver that would be really awesome. But I've scrapped the idea of making an early start. Although I want to get to my friend Donna's in Iowa by early Tuesday, the whole point of this trip was NOT to stress out. And so far, it's been kind of stressful. So we're just going to wake up when we wake up and get ready when we get ready, and go when we go.
By the way, another surprise for us today was the camera not working. It had worked fine the prior night, but when I got the kids all set up to take our first picture, it kept trying to get itself oriented, and asking us to turn the power on and off again. Neither Mark nor I could figure out what was going on. So there will be no pictures for our first day. I'm recharging the battery as we speak, so perhaps that will do the trick and we'll have some pics by tomorrow.
My goal tomorrow will be to divide the trip into 2-3 hour segments and see if we can have fun with it.
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