quite possibly the most breathtaking place on earth
Here are some photos from my family trip to Lake Powell.
Despite my skepticism about living on a boat with my entire family and three other brave souls, we all survived and still like each other. There was potential for disaster at times, but alcohol pretty much demolished any kind of care in the world for most of us. It was like margaritaville, but in the desert.
On a bad note though, I did have an unusual case of vertigo when I got off the boat as we were eating in a trashy diner near Virgin*, Utah.
*Which beside the name would seem insignificant, but Virgin happened to be the town in which my mom was pulled over by Utah State Patrol and given a fat $82 ticket for speeding approximately three weeks after she had knocked on the faux wood-trimmed dash of her Passat stating she has never EVER been pulled over by law enforcement.
That is because you drive a station wagon, Mom. (A cute one though!)
About the diner though: We were so hungry, we did not care that this establishment sold pie that looked older than some of my tennis shoes, or that teeth at our table alone outnumbered those belonging to the clientele of the entire restaurant AND the Citgo station next door. (Or was the restaurant CONNECTED to the gas station? I don't remember). All I know is we all wanted greasy food so badly, we could have eaten each of Parker's arms like a giant turkey leg. And I think Parker would have taken one for the team and at least let us have a nibble.
About the boat trip though: We slept under the stars almost every night on the flybridge mainly to avoid the stuffy cabin heat and to catch the cool breeze on the top deck.
I will now let the pictures speak for the rest of the trip.
It. Was. Awesome.
Rainbow Bridge National Monument, the world's largest natural bridge, Lake Powell, UT
See those little specks of people in the right hand side of the photo above? Yeah, that's my dad and brother. My brother is 6'3". I'm just saying.
family trip
My family and I leave for Utah tomorrow for a week-long houseboat vacation on Lake Powell. If I am functioning or even alive when we return, I will be utterly grateful. Living in an 800-square foot apartment is hard enough. I cannot imagine what it will be like living with seven other people on a similar sized boat. I warned Jered that he may not come back with a girlfriend, and that if he comes back at all, and still wants to be with me, I give him A LOT of credit.
My family is crazy. And my family ON VACATION is not unlike The Griswold's on
National Lampoon's Vacation, only with more board games. And we are proud of it.
Four years ago, Jered joined me and my family on a trip to Santa Barbara, and I think that five days with my idiosyncratic kin-folk just about put him over the edge. I am talking about five whole, CONSECUTIVE days with my brother who at the time was eleven years old and who, every morning, bitched about eating breakfast at a restaurant where they did not serve giant hot cinnamon rolls.
I have pictures to prove this. He was not a happy camper on that trip (my brother, that is.) And Jered was not a happy camper because of my brother's disdain toward the city of Santa Barbara and all outlying communities in a ten mile radius who did not have restaurants with cinnamon rolls on their breakfast menu. If Parker did not get his cinnamon roll, he may have eaten the entire city block on which our hotel rested.
Jered also experienced the claws coming out on that "vacation" when we rented a surry bike with my sister and brother. Shortly into what we thought would be a leisurely ride, my brother insisted on steering us in downtown Santa Barbara rush-hour traffic, and Jered's patience was set loose like I had never before seen.
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So to get back at Parker, Jered bought a $3 knock-off shark tooth at a local gift shop and buried it in the sand by the beach so that my eleven-year-old
innocent little brother would stumble across it and later show it off as if he had just found washed up on shore the dental remains of a REAL great white.
about a boy
Thus far, the experience of living with Jered has been surprisingly enjoyable. I say
surprisingly not because I expected our relationship to go straight to Hell (though in most Christian religions that would be exactly where it's going), but because I was apprehensive about sharing an 800 square foot, 1-bedroom apartment with an accountant.
A very
messy accountant.
Okay, so he is not
that messy. Though I will say that we have had our fair share of arguments these past few weeks; thankfully they have been over nothing more than dirty laundry and bathroom privacy.
About three months ago, I gave up eating Taco Bell (perhaps one of my most favorite indulgences) after a really bad case of food poisoning, and though I am sure I will eat it sometime again in my life, I promised myself, as of now, that I would not put my body through that obliterating pain and sickness again. Thankfully it did not take me very long to get over my cravings for the beloved T-bell. But every time I drive past one of these establishments, I sort of get a tear in my eye.
A tear that perhaps represents my comfort in knowing that I am in fact doing a good thing for my body.
Moving in with Jered is sort of like driving past a Taco Bell. Much like my intestines are thanking me for replenishing them with better quality food, I am growing up and ready to take on better things.
in no particular order, things that make me anxious
1. People walking down the street while engrossed in a book. I hate that. Is your novel really that interesting? I doubt it. These people are almost always science fiction readers.
2. When store names are purposefully mispelled to be catchy. (ie. Kathy's Krafts, Koffee Korner) I do not find that catchy at all. I find it repulsive.
3. When people put their windshield wipers on a setting faster than is absolutely necessary.
4. Watching any kind of eating contest-- those little Asian people treating their hot dog game like they've just won a trip for triple bypass surgery on the Price Is Right and therefore have to cash in the offer before it expires.
5. Vending machines. The anxiety those damn codes bring me is unsettling.
D5...yes. D and.....5, that's right. (the metal piece uncoiling to drop my Twix bar)
yes! I got it right!
