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Wednesday morning, I awoke at five a.m., feeling a little
bit better - well enough that I knew I wasn't going to die anytime soon. Which
was good because we had a busy day ahead of us. Most of the day would be spent
trying to get the houseboat back to Wahweap before 2:00 p.m., which was when
it was due back at the rental place. In order to get the maximum speed out of
the boat, though, we would all get to take turns taking the speed boat out on
mini-excursions, to do our last bit of sightseeing before we had to return to
dock.
John and I were the first to go. Taking Erika with us, we went to explore
Cathedral Canyon, which, according to the map, would become narrower and
narrower until it was impassible by boat. As we passed through the towering
canyons, the walls indeed became so narrow that we had to put out the bumpers
to keep us from damaging the boat on the rock. Then, it opened up again, just
enough for us to turn the boat around by hand so that we could leave. Beyond
that point, it became too narrow for the speedboat. The canoe could have made
it, or we could have swam it, but we didn't have those options.
As we left Cathedral Canyon, John asked me if I felt well enough to drive the
speedboat one last time. Though I was still very congested and a little groggy
from the cold medicine, I couldn't pass up the chance to drive the speed boat
again. I drove us all the way from Cathedral Canyon to Dangling Rope Marina,
where we were to meet up with the houseboat again.
The houseboat was already there when we arrived, but they were just about
ready to leave. I docked the speed boat anyway, and John and Erika and I went
into the grocery store to buy Nyquil for my cold and souvenirs. We bought our
"Find the Way" Lake Powell T-shirts there, because they were the same price as
those at the Wahweap Lodge and we probably weren't going to have time to buy
them before leaving for Zion National Park. Erika also bought a coffee mug to
replace her old Lake Powell cup.
Having finished there, we left Dangling Rope and met up with the houseboat
outside of the buoys. By that time, Janice and Danny were finally awake.
Janice had a screaming hangover, and she had already spent the better part of
the morning vomiting overboard. (What a lovely image!) When John and I came
back on board, she was sitting on deck, looking like she had been hit by a
Mack truck, sunglasses covering her eyes from the bright rays of sun.
 Bill and Erika took the speed boat next, so John and I kept the houseboat
moving. Then, around buoy number thirty, Janice had a great idea. She wanted
to go on an inner-tube ride behind the houseboat! What a great idea! She went
first, and she had the time of her life -- but so did the rest of us on the
boat, because she looked ridiculous! As she sat in the tube, her legs went up
over her head, and from a distance they looked like her arms!
After that, John and Danny had to try it, too. John took his turn next, and he
said that all he could do was giggle like a school girl because it was so
laughably fun. As he got back on the boat, he told me that he wished I wasn't
so sick, because I would have fun doing that.
By the time it was Danny's turn, Bill and Erika returned in the speedboat, and
when they saw what we were doing, they wanted to try it, too. John and I
offered to take the speed boat while they played, and we met them back at
marker number twenty. Once again, he let me drive the speedboat, and we took
it into Padre Bay...where we ran out of gas! Fortunately, we were prepared for
that; we had extra fuel in the back of the boat.
 After circling Padre Bay, we circled Padre Butte and drove all around the main
channel until it came time to wait for the houseboat to join us. Then, when
they finally met up with us, we climbed on board and let all of the others
take the speed boat into Labyrinth Canyon to go exploring. We met up with them
by Castle Rock -- the site where we had gone swimming on the first day. From
there, it was only a few miles from Wahweap and the end of our adventure on
Lake Powell.
Well, not quite the end. Once we reached the Wahweap Marina, just after one
o'clock in the afternoon, there was still a lot of work to do. John and Janice
volunteered to take the speed boat back to Doo Powell, and the rest of us
unloaded the houseboat. We devised a system that worked very efficiently, and
in just a half an hour we had everything unloaded. I stayed on the houseboat
and loaded wheelbarrow carts, while Danny and Bill rolled them back up to the
motor home, where Erika unloaded them and put things away.
Having turned the boat back in, we went to the campground to get a site for
the night. Soon after that, John and Janice returned from Page. That meant
that it was time to say our good-byes to Janice and Danny, who had to return
to Phoenix. After loading all of their stuff into the van, we wished them a
safe trip home and thanked them for a good time on the boat.
We had dinner that night in Page. Then, we spent the night in the motor home,
watching videos from the trip and resting up from the hard day's work. We were
in bed early that night, for the next day we would have to be awake early in
order to make Zion National Park by nine o'clock in the morning. Doped up on
Nyquil, I fell asleep with one thought in my mind, "I wish the motor home
would stop swaying!" (Having spent five days on a boat, I wasn't yet used to
sleeping in a stationery vehicle!) Return
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