Jorgenson Adventures: Lake Powell

We headed to LP over Memorial Day weekend. Second time we've gone this weekend. Hopefully it can become a tradition. This year we did it a little differently. We have way too much going on right now to even try to prep for LP camping. It takes so, so much prep to camp. So we decided to head to Page, Arizona and Wahweap. We drove to our St George place Thursday night and then the rest of the way Friday morning. This time we stayed in a hotel, which made the prep a million times easier. Leading up to the trip I'd been working every day doing landscaping at the office. I had zero time to do anything. I got done working at the office at like 12:00 Thursday, and we left at 3:00. So much better than the days and days of camping prep.

Anyway, LP always has adventures, to put it nicely. Everyone who's been there has multiple stories of things going wrong. So you go and just hope that it's not too bad. This trip we had quite a lot of adventures. No one got hurt, and the boat didn't sink, so I guess we should call it a win. These are the things you really remember down the road, right?

We got on the lake in the afternoon on Friday. Everything seemed great. Beautiful LP. We made it! Then we noticed that our bilge pump was draining water out of our boat a lot. Like way more than it should. There was obviously water coming into our boat somehow. Never a good thing. However, the pump was working great. Seemed like we were doing ok. So we decided to keep boating and hope for the best. Right after the stressful moment of figuring out our boat was leaking, we got pulled over by the fish and game people. Horrible timing. I was driving, Jake was surfing, and Zack was sitting on the back platform of the boat working the rope. That's why we got pulled over. You're not supposed to sit there unless you're wakeless. So they gave me a ticket. Told me I should be able to call and pay it online. Annoying, but not the end of the world. Until I called to pay and they told me it's a misdemeanor and I have to appear in court. What??? So I get to attend court, over zoom gratefully, later this month. Triple ugh.

Saturday morning we got back on the water and Jake and Zack immediately set to work to try to figure out where we were taking on water. They got it figured out, used their creative brains, and realized that Ace had the part they would need to fix it. We decided since we didn't sink the day before we would enjoy the day on the lake and fix it that evening. Saturday was probably the funnest day out. So relaxing. Everyone got to do everything they wanted, and it was beautiful and sunny. We got off the lake, and Jake and Zack managed to fix the leak in the Ace parking lot. Hallelujah.

Sunday we were excited not to have to fix anything on the boat. Except we got in the water and the boat wouldn't start. Nothing. We checked everything we could think of and finally looked at the battery. Somehow a wire had come off during the repairs the day before. Hooked it back up and the boat was good to go. Phew. We had a nice day, but everyone was so worn out from all the water activity that we didn't even do that much. Zack and Sage usually never want to stop being pulled behind the boat. They'll do pretty much anything. So if they won't go out you know they're really tired.

We headed back to St George Sunday afternoon and pulled up to Dairy Queen for dinner at like 8:30pm. Zack got out of the truck, looked down at the tire, and there was no tire. At some point on the drive one of the tires on the trailer blew and we didn't notice it. Still don't understand how that happened. There was nothing left of the tire, just the hubcap. The boys changed the tire, and we finally got back to the house.

We went home Monday. Because of the holiday we decided to just risk driving home without a spare. I mean, what are the chances we'd have two flats in one trip? Good apparently. We were 5 minutes outside of Beaver when the spare that we'd put on blew. This time we felt it and pulled over. There was literally nothing we could do without a spare tire. We called and found that Big O Tires was open, so we turned on the hazards and headed in on the shoulder. In holiday traffic on I-15. Got to Big O and learned that although our tires looked good, they were like 15 years old. That's why they kept blowing. So we replaced all of our tires and got a new spare. $900 later we were out the door. With traffic and the tire it took us 7.5 hours to get home.

So that was our trip. And if you read this far you get a prize. There were goods and bads of not camping. We definitely missed the quiet nights and glass water of the early mornings. However, we really enjoyed being able to clean up at night, go out and get food, and sleeping in a normal bed. I told Jake I might be open to camping again eventually, but until things calm down it's not happening.

Also need to give a shout out to Zack. As much as his Jeep being broken really frustrates me, he's learned a lot about mechanics. We couldn't have handled everything that went wrong without him. He came up with great ideas and was the one in the tight spots, fixing things. He definitely earned his keep on this trip. New LP rule, no going without Zack...