Lake Powell, Arizona and Las Vegas

For those of you who don't know my family had planned a family trip months before my eastern europe trip. This trip is in the western US so I'm back in the us for a bit. We (my parents, sister Hagar, brother Guy, and his girlfriend Lindsay) begin by flying to las vegas and driving to Lake Powell where we rent a house boat (three bedrooms - nice), a power boat, a jet ski, water skis, and a doughnut inflatable thingy (technical term). None of us have advanced knowledge of marine navigation but how hard can it really be - plus we did this thing a few years ago. Well we start with my dad driving the houseboat out and I'm manning the power boat. We exit the marina and meet up to tie the power boat to the houseboat so the houseboat can tow it. We get it done, but when we start the houseboat up the tow rope gets caught in the houseboat propellor and were stuck - doh! Lindsay immediately jumps in the water to investigate the propellor and I follw her to pretend to be useful. A utility boat that had been watching us with suspicion comes over, tells us to get our asses on the boat, and end up calling over a mechanic to loosen the propellor to undo the rope. Ok everythings cool now and we're off!

We had gotten directions to go to the right of a huge rock but we soon got lost until we turned on the boats GPS and figured out where we were. After an hour or so we found a nice beach and anchored the boat. We had dinner, made a fire, had smores, and slept. Really well.

From Lake Powell, Utah

The next day was all fun in the sun type stuff. We got a jet ski, did some water skiing, and other fun stuff. Eventually we had some issues with the jet ski so we radioed for a jet ski mechanic to come over. We were finishing up water skiing as it started to get windy so we headed back to the house boat only to see that one anchor (out of two) had dislodged. Oh crap. The wind had really picked up and was blowing away all our stuff on shore. Luckily the jet ski guy was there to help with a buddy. Next thing we knows its dark and hailing with huge waves shaking the houseboat. Both anchors are now dislodged and the boat is turning out of control. One of us turns to my dad and says with total seriousness "Are we gonna die?" Well we didn't die and after 30 minutes we weathered the storm and got the houseboat anchored again (really well). The jet ski guy had grown up there and said he had never seen anything like that. Oh and he hit on Hagar (promises of jetsking together) which was awkward but amusing.

From Lake Powell, Utah

The rest of the time was really fun (water skiing, etc) and then we went to Vegas. Checked out a bunch of casinos and plays hours and hours of poker. Saw Love (Beatles cirque du soliel) which was ok but nothing out of this world.

Also had an interesting encounter with a cab driver. My mom starts chatting him up and we get into politics. The man had some interesting revisionist history. Turns out Bush didn't want to go to war in Iraq but the UN begged him and Bush reluctanly lead the world. Interesting. He also admitted to not knowing about the existance of Islam until a few years ago. Needless to say this guy was a McCain supporter. And since Vegas is in a desert, the man has middle east foreign policy experience. If McCain wins in november (shudder) maybe this guy could be Secretary of Defense. (sarcastic Sarah Palin reference).