Surviving Lake Powell 2023 — The Johnson Family

Saturday

Chris drove from Wyoming to Draper on Friday night and then he and Megan went to Brynn Theurer’s baptism on Saturday morning. They loved being there. Dad and Megan picked up Katie and Emily in Provo and started driving.

The boys and I finished getting everything ready and finally got on the road about 3:00. I drove for the first half hour and then, when I realized it was highway instead of freeway, I pulled over and let Luke take a turn. We talked about passing lanes, and monitored speed limits and he did so great. After an hour I taught him how to use the (speed regulator) mode and he loved that on big open stretches of highway without any other cars. He ended up driving the rest of the way to Page. I drove a half hour and he drove two hours. So exciting to have such a SHORT drive! Loved it. The boys and I listened to a lot of Cars and had a great drive.

We met up with the Johnsons at the Maverick in Page. The boys and I arrived first and then 20 minutes later the Johnson caravan arrived. Then Chris and the girls. So happy to see them all. We headed to the marina and started the quick job of unpacking all the vehicles and getting everything down to the houseboat. The weather was mild compared to weeks we’ve been here before - which was great.

Ashlyn and Zeke wanted their own room so Chris and I were assigned to the big downstairs room with Shelley. It ended up being way more room, but boy did it smell bad. In fact, the houseboat smelled awful from the very beginning. The past several years Nikole has tried to bring things to lessen the worsening smell, but this year she had boxes full of air purifiers and sprays - which definitely helped - but couldn’t do much against the real problems which were a broken toilet in the master bedroom that had to be completely reworked and figured out.

Sunday

We knew we’d be in port for several hours as they tried to fix the toilet situation so Chris and I went for a morning walk together. We started listening to a Come Follow Me podcast and then transitioned into a long conversation about the kids and parenting and our desire to connect better with each of them. So good. Rob had headed off to WalMart to find parts for the houseboat and we waited in line together for a ride back down to the houseboat.

Turns out the system took longer to repair than normal which meant that we would be staying at the Marina another night. We made the best of it by playing games for most of the day.

Chris and I were in charge of dinner and served one of our favorite meals… Texas Pile-up.

We gathered our kids and headed up on the deck to give Chris his Father’s Day Presents - one week early since we won’t be together next Sunday. Luke and Matt and I got Dad the Tiny Towns game again since we lost our copy a year or two ago and Ryan and Cassie ordered him an expansion pack. Megan and I got him an ‘ALWAYS ON VACATION’ Travis Mathews shirt, Emily and Katie gave him some Off Beat Butters to keep up in Wyoming and I gave him another Travis Mathew’s bathing suit.

The cards and letters made Dad (and I) emotional and then we stayed to talk about memories and laughed about funny things. It was a highlight of the day — and maybe the week too!

We’re so grateful that Chris is such a wonderful husband and father.

Monday

Crazy day. Sunday evening the air conditioning decided to stop working. Great. We debated about heading out first thing in the morning without working AC or staying to see if they could look at it and see what needed to be done. We decided to wait and John was ready outside the office at 7:00am for someone to talk to. I was awake too and decided to walk the piers since we had some time. After checking it out they told us the process to fix it would probably take several hours. We decided we wanted to get going and to forego the AC for the week. We left about 11:00 after all of the other docked houseboats had a head start. John drove the houseboat out into the channel and it the kids told us they didn’t remember it taking so long in previous years. After about two hours John and Nikole, Em, Spence, Megan, Ezra etc left on the ski boat to go scout locations for the houseboat. Everything was pretty full but they finallly came back with a few options. They left the kids on the shore, John took over on the houseboat and Nikole drove the boat behind. As we entered out little cove the sky darkened and the wind picked up dramatically pushing the houseboat almost out of control. Then we lost an engine. John was understandable panicked and let out a few explitives and everyone was SILENT and the feeling was tense. Older kids quietly consoled younger kids. It was so scary. The wind pushed us again and John cranked it hard trying to avoid hitting another houseboat in the cove but with only one engine working it was a little sketchy. John asked ‘What should I do?’ To Chris and Rob but no one had answers except for Cash (age 6) who immediately thought of several ideas. Not now Cash. Haha Several of us silently prayed. Seeing our distress, three young guys from a nearby houseboat jumped on jetskis and came over offering to lend a hand digging holes for anchors knowing that we needed to get anchored fast. What a blessing. They started quickly and John used his one engine to ram the houseboat into the land. ‘Hold on everyone’, he said. We smacked hard against the red rock - which we were hopping was a little more sand, was wasn’t. Things fell of the counter and Cash’s chair tipped over but otherwise we braced ourselves and were fine. Chris, Rob and Spence hopped off the boat and helped the teens dig while John used the one ‘half engine’ working to push into the land. The wind died down and picked up and died down again as they got the anchors set. Whew. Now we know why John is so adament about heading out FIRST thing in the morning. You just can’t trust the wind later in the day.

John had a migraine and took a nap and when he was up we salvaged the day by heading on the boat for our first run of the trip. Katie, Emily, Megan, John, Nikole, Spencer. So fun.

Ashlyn and Zeke grilled chicken and served salads and watermelon for dinner.

Tuesday

I didn’t sleep great the night before - lots of tossing and turning. I think I was a little too hot even with the fan blowing. We got the kitchen organized and started pulling out things for a big pancake breakfast with bacon and eggs. I made a protein shake and then Chris and I dashed off on the boat with John, and the middle kids… Luke, Matt, Kayla, Haylee, Payton. Katie and Megan got all ready to come and waited outside on the houseboat to see if there was enough room. We listened to music and enjoyed the sun. It was fun to see John happily smiling as Kayla started us off. She did great. Matt got up but wasn’t able to balance enough to throw the rope in. Luke with some specific tutoring got the hang of it and did really well, surprising himself, which was cute. It was a fun couple of hours.

When we got back to the houseboat everyone was outside jumping in the water and playing on the new flat mat that the Moons had purchased. We got the island and things blown up and enjoyed relaxing outside for awhile. I love our new Costco floatie. I relaxed for awhile and then headed upstairs to lay out - almost falling asleep.

When I went downstairs everyone had congregated for a late lunch inside and were then talking about favorite movies, favorite actors and actresses and music. Common Johnson topics. Fun to hang out inside for awhile while a dark grey cloud passed over and we got a little rain. We then started several games. Chris, Spencer, Nikole and I played Summer Pavilion while John, Katie, Matt and Derek played Stained Glass on the other side of the table. Some of the little kids played Azul on the floor. Some read books. Everyone was there together either playing, reading or sleeping.

When the clouds parted, John took all the little kids for a boat ride with Ashlyn, Zeke, Rob and Lindsey. When we finished our Stained Glass game everyone headed outside for a hour or two. The teens played on the flat mat for a long time and then Katie and Nikole and I took it over as a peaceful no splashing zone and we talked for a long time.

Nikole’s night for dinner - Ziti pasta and green beans. As dinner started we discovered that the toilet was overflowing and after a little investigation, that one of the poop tanks had never been emptied. You’ve got to be kidding. At this point John and Nikole are beyond mad with the service and the manager and this houseboat in general. Just done. Thanks to John, Nikole … and to Chris, who literally used a red solo cup to fill up a beach bucket with poop and carried it out to be buried THREE times. Several of us sat around the kitchen table just watched in awe. All we could do was laugh at the situation and say ‘This is crappy.’ over and over. Oh man. We discussed just calling it and driving back into the marina and then remembered that we didn’t have any engines so we couldn’t leave even if we wanted to. So plan B is we all 27 of us share the one working toilet.

John will contact the Marina when we have service out on the lake tomorrow.

After dinner we hung out in the living room together talking and reading for the evening. Chris and I headed to bed at 10:45 before most people called it a night.

Wednesday

Going to bed early helped but I woke up at 6:11 and couldn’t get back to sleep again so I wrote in my journal.

Katie, Derek, Brigette, Haylee, Kayla, Luke and Matt slept squished together in this area of the houseboat and Spencer was close by. The little kids slept on the other side with Emily the furthest away.

John, Spencer and Ashlyn took Zeke and kids back to the marina and then talked to the supervisor about our houseboat issues. Later that day someone came out to look at the engines and then later again to get them both working.

John, Nikole, Chris and I took Spencer, Katie, Emily and Megan out to surf and it was such a fun morning. We listened to music, took pictures of everyone surfing and jumped in every so often to cool off. Our temperatures have been mild in the 80s - which is perfect for a broken AC.

I love that the kids are so close to the boat while they are surfing that they can sing to their favorite songs and we can laugh together. Emily’s getting so good.

Came back for lunch. Chips and salsa and avocado for me. I laid on the top deck for a while with the girls. Then Chris and I headed out again with Nikole, John and the ‘middles’. Haylee, Brigette, Derek, Luke and Matt. Luke and Matt did so great. Especially fun watching Matt try a different board and get up easily. He spent his whole time dancing around and pretending to throw a football and swing a golf club and everything else. So entertaining. Lots of jumping in the water. So fun.

Back at the houseboat we were anxious for shade and games. We played a couple games of Stained Glass until dinner was ready… pork tacos from Lindsey and Rob.

After dinner we played Hand and Foot with all the adults until it was interrupted by huge gusts of wind that moved the boat dramatically and had things flying away. We immediately had the kids gather in the living room while the big kids ran upstairs to collect towels and secure everything so that it wouldn’t fly away. We lost a big lemon floatie thing that the middles with have fun searching for tomorrow, but other than that got the decks thoroughly secured.

Rob, Chris and Spencer ran outside to tighten the ropes and anchors and John remained at the helm using the engine to fight against the wind - until the engines all of a sudden stopped working. Lots of tension in the air again as we watched John, Rob and Chris run back and forth from the front of the boat to the back where the engines were trying to figure things out. I went down into my room with Katie, Emily and Megan and informed them of what was going on and then said ‘say a little prayer’. 15 seconds later Chris yelled they’re on! That led us into a 15 minute conversation about prayer and how some things we pray for happen and some things don’t - or at least not the way we think they should. I’m so grateful for prayer.

Thursday

Friday

The sun was shining brightly when I woke up at 7:30am. Apparently full sun was in the forecast, but after a big breakfast and the adults and big teens heading out to surf the gray clouds hoovered overhead. Matt, Kayla and Haylee climbed the big rocks and hung out. I sat on the deck and read ‘Lakeshire Park’ and Grandma and Derek read inside the houseboat.

Always impressed that this girl wants to give FOILING a try. So hard!!

Spencer is a natural surfer and it was fun to watch him do some 360’s and ALMOST make it and keep surfing. He was close several times.

We had burgers for dinner and the kids sat up on top and enjoyed the sunset hazy skies before our last summer storm came in.

My instagram write-up said…

“We joked that we needed ‘I Survived Lake Powell 2023’ T-shirts this year.

We had toilet issues, failed engines, nightly windy rain storms, no AC, and the houseboat smelled because the marina FORGOT to empty one of the poop tanks from the week before AND it was leaking underneath through the pipes and seeping everywhere. There was even an issue that involved Chris scooping poop into a solo cup and filing up a kids sand bucket 3 times to empty in a hole he dug outside. It was bad - but all we could do was laugh about it.

But we played lots of games, ate good food, surfed and enjoyed the boat, and had a blast being with Chris’ family. For sure a trip that will go down in the books!”