Lake Powell June 2009

Last Tuesday night we headed to Wahweap for some sun and relaxation. Our friends, Dustin and Whitney, invited us to stay on their houseboat with them and it was awesome! We had so much fun!!! We took the houseboat out Wednesday morning and stayed on a beach near 'cookie jar'. I'm not sure if that is the technical name, but it totally looked like the lid of a cookie jar! :)

We relaxed, swam and had some fun boat outings. My favorite was Rainbow Bridge. Saturday we packed lunches and headed out. We stopped at a beach up a slot canyon near the state park for lunch and then went over to Rainbow Bridge. It was amazing... I cannot believe it was both mine and Brett's first time there! It is beautiful and hopefully it won't be too long before we go back- our kids thought it was pretty cool too.

The slot canyons we went up were CRAZY narrow! I'm talking we had to have people on both sides of the boat to help guide the boat through. There were even times that we had to put the boat in idle and just push our way through... something that Brett and I have never experienced before. There are some pictures below, but they just do not do it justice.

One of the canyons we went up ended with enough room to tie the boats off to a small tree and we (rather the guys) decided to take the everyone on an 'adventure' and swim/hike up the rest of the canyon. It was cool until we were swimming in the dirtiest water I have probably ever seen. There was literally 2-3 inches of branches, leaves, dirt, logs, etc. on top of the water. We had to push our way through it and it was disgusting!!! I still cannot believe I went and neither can Brett. He was helping all the kids and others up the rock at the end of the swim and when he realized that I was there he had such a surprised look on his face. :) He didn't even ask if I was going to go because he totally thought I never would have. I was the last up and then after a little walk we had to go through a pool (I guess that is what you'd call it) that was about 3-4 feet wide, 20 feet long and the COLDEST water I've been in. It didn't have any yucky stuff (thank goodness) but it was the color of the redrock. Pretty cool. It ended up getting deep and we had to swim about the last 8 feet. We hiked a bit more and then the last pool before reaching the end stunk so bad (like sulpher) that we didn't go through it. Some did but they told the rest of us not to. We were all FILTHY and Brandon and Stephanie's shower on the back of the boat came in handy. We should have taken before and after pics!!! It was DEFINATELY an adventure and even though I think every child cried at one point (all except for my Brock) it was worth it.

Here are some pictures of our Lake Powell adventures...