It's safe to say that Team Baditude dominated Lake Powell.

Thursday night, Diana dropped Iwan and myself off at the airport, on the
way to Vegas. We arrived and got our bags, and immediately noticed that
the cab line was HUGE. Apparently (we learned later), the cabbies have
some beef with a new law being passed, and were showing protest by
slowing service to the airport that day, and increasing slowing of
service through the entire weekend. The cabbie we talked to said, and I
agree, that without cabs in Vegas, the whole place would turn into a
huge Charlie Foxtrot.

The debate is actually an interesting one. Apparently strip clubs give
cabbies a kickback for taking patrons to their club. But the amount
isn't equal between clubs, so the cabbies, of course, will urge patrons
to the highest bidder. The new law (that the cabbies are fighting),
says that kickbacks cannot be given to cabbies, but it still allows for
limo drivers towncar drivers to get these incentives, which kind of
singles out the cabbies unfairly.

Anyhoo, we headed over to the Hard Rock (we were staying at a hotel
you've never heard of next door), and met up with Baditude, Nemesis,
Senor Dips and PPR, all of them getting schooled at various table games.
The group of us headed out to Slots of Fun, which is one of the most
budget casino's I've ever seen (especially after having just left the
Mandalay Bay, which we had to swing by on the way). Mick joined us at
some point when his delayed flight landed, and I was glad to see him.
Eryn and Nemesis departed early, leaving just me and Iwan and Mick.
From there, the night turns into a happy, fuzzy memory of gin and
tonics, "Let it Ride" and late night (er, early morning) hot dogs.

The next day, we dragged our sorry asses out of bed at the ungodly hour
of 10am, braved the piercing light of day, packed into a pair of SUVs,
and rolled out to Lake Powell. The drive was about 4.5 or 5 hours. I
spent the drive in the shotgun seat of the rented car driven by Nemesis,
with a groggy Discostup in the back seat. I talked a lot to Nemesis (a
friend of Eryn's from college), a fellow geek, about movies and books
and computer games, and I enjoyed getting to know him more. He seems
like a really good guy. He works as a GM (game master) for Sims Online,
Ultima Online, and another game I don't remember. His job sounds a lot
like a kindergarten teacher, without all the "education" stuff, but with
all the argument arbitration that would entail.

We reached Lake Powell in the early evening, where we met up with Liz
and Eryn's mom Kris, completing our fellowship of nine (Adam, Eryn,
Iwan, Mick, Eric, Mike H. Papa Roston, Kris, and Liz). A solid crew.

At this point, the boat was being rented, some people did grocery
shopping, stuff was unloaded from the car and loaded onto the boat in a
frenzy of activity. It was really fun to be with Eryn at this point.
He was as giddy as I've ever seen him. Clearly, Lake Powell was a very
special place for him, and being back brought back a ton of happy
memories. I was stoked to be there with him.

In spite of the houseboat tied up to the dock on a flat lake, my
nervousness of seasickness set in as soon as I boarded.

A note about seasickness. I've only had one instance of seasickness in
my entire life (and I've been on various boats at various times
throughout my life). That time was on a very rough ocean fishing trip,
and I spent the half day either throwing up or asleep on the deck,
completely miserable. Worst day ever. Since then, I've been relatively
terrified of boats (or more specifically, getting seasick), rationally
or otherwise. In spite of everyone's assurances that I wouldn't, I was
still nervous.

Unfortunately, nervousness feels a lot like seasickness, and the two can
be confusing. We spent the evening on the boat, catching up and
chatting, and I paid very close attention to every motion of the boat
and the status of my body. We went up and had dinner at the lodge, and
I bought some Dramamine just in case, and took half a pill after dinner.
Either physically or (most likely) psychologically, I felt a lot better
afterwards. I didn't get sick or uncomfortable at all for the rest of
the trip (except the last day a little... more on that later).

That night, in spite of it being a little windy and cloudy, we decided
to sleep on the top deck of the boat. It was a warm summer night, and
we were all jazzed to be there. I woke up with the others in the middle
of the night to a howling wind. No big deal, as it was warm and cozy in
my sleeping bag. However, when the first few drops of rain started, we
all got up out of our bags, and moved everything under the tiny tarp
that covered a portion of the upper deck. It only took a second to
realize that the rain was coming down sideways, and that a tarp above us
was practically useless. So we all moved downstairs and concluded our
sleeping on various floors or in various cabins. It was all very fun.

The next day, we set out on the lake, ski-boat in tow. The plan was,
after deciding on a good spot on the map, to head out, find a good
docking point, and dock the boat on a beach or somewhere solid and make
that our base camp for the weekend. We struck out and made our way to a
different portion of the lake, and our new home. Iwan and I had some
fun with the map, once we discovered that it had GPS coordinates, water
elevation contour lines and stuff like that. My GPS said that our
elevation (and therefore, the elevation of the water) was 5600 feet.
The map of the lake listed the water level at 5700 feet. That meant
that on the map, where it said the water was 100' deep, it was actually
dry land at that point. This made some routes impossible to follow,
obviously. I also was pleased to use the GPS to figure out our exact
spot on the map, and discovered that we'd missed a turn. GPS's are fun!

A little note about Lake Powell. The lake is manmade via a dam at the
south end. The dam has filled the various nearby canyons with water,
which means that most of the lake was surrounded by high, vertical
ridges of striated sandstone. There were lots of narrow areas (that
would be impressive canyons, I think, if not half-filled with water) and
high buttes and stuff. It was all very beautiful, in a rugged,
desolate, Grand Canyon kind of way. Eryn and I decided it looked a lot
like Thousand Needles or The Badlands, if you're familiar with those
areas.

After a few hours, we made it to the end of one of the thousands of
fingers of the lake, and found a very nice spot under a huge cliff wall,
with a large pile of sandstone rocks nearby, which at some point in the
last hundred years was probably part of the wall above us. The "rock"
that made up the shoreline was all sandstone, and you could break many
rocks in half with your hands.

At camp, we got the boat anchored to various spots on the surrounding
beach, and thus began our stay in the wilderness. Unfortunately, the
first afternoon was windy and a small thunderstorm brewed. But we
enjoyed watching it from our cozy porch, and chatting amongst ourselves.
After the storm was the most intense, brilliant rainbow I've ever seen,
joined by a second, fainter rainbow, which I'd never seen before.
Fantastic. That evening we slept indoors.

The next day was beautiful (as was the rest of the trip).
Unfortunately, it was Sunday already, and some of our team needed to
leave (Eric, Nemesis, and PPR). We got in some skiing time in the
morning, and the above were driven back to the dock by Iwan and Eryn
where they were would get back in one of the two cars and depart (I'm
not sure if they drove back to Vegas or what). That whole crew was gone
for quite a while, leaving Liz, Mick, Kris, and myself at the boat for
much of the afternoon.

The beach (well, outcropping of rock) that we were staying on was
bordered by a large hillslide of sandstone rocks of varying sizes, from
pebbles to huge boulders. I thought it might be fun to stack some up,
and try to make a little tower. Balancing things is fun. It requires a
neat mix of concentration, patience, and coordination which I enjoy.
The standstone was perfect in that it would break up into rocks that
were usually pretty flat on opposite sides. I made a pretty good stack.
Liz and Mike came and joined me, and we made a bunch more. Liz and Mike
made a lot of smaller ones, and the three of us teamed up to me another
big one. It was really fun to do, and nice to look at afterwards. They
blew over later in the afternoon when the wind picked up.

Sunday and Monday were spent waterskiing (me and Eryn), wakeboarding
(Liz), dueling tubes (everyone), and kneeboarding (Iwan). In between
ski trips we read, sunned, fished for little bluegill, snacked, threw
the Shockey Ball, and generally hung out. New lingo was introduced.
People were schooled left and right. Eryn bird-dogged it the most...
Iwan held out the longest. Everyone got it done, in a general sense.
Nights were spent on the top deck, watching stars on the ManBed. It was
all really great and relaxing.

I spent a lot of time in my bathing suit this weekend, which isn't
really where I'm the most comfortable. I'm really skinny, and I think
skinniness on a guy is somewhat similar to fatness on a girl. Mind you,
I'm not complaining about being skinny, as I don't really do anything to
bulk up, but I'm still self conscious about the way that I look. And in
spite of being happily, monogomously married, and not looking to impress
women with my physique, somehow having an attractive female around only
compounded matters. So I waffled between self-consciousness and mild
embarassment to generally giving in and saying "this is how I am, I
might as well work with it".

I'm reminded of bringing up the concept of being self conscious about my
weight to an overweight guy at work. He didn't have much sympathy. He
just shook his head and said "The grass is always greener..." in a way
that closed the conversation. I guess I shouldn't worry about it too
much.

Monday afternoon, we decided to go on a hike on some open land across the
mini bay where we were camped. We ended up walking up a quite steep
mountainside until we reached a notch way up in the cliff up above. I
was a little sketched to hike up that high, wondering how we were going
to get back down, but I'm glad I did. The views were awesome. We
took some pics and headed back down, which turned out to be easier than
going up, since the sand was soft and we could kind of sand-ski down the
hillside. Good times.

Tuesday was travel day. We got up early, and did a final ski outing in
the morning, and then pulled up anchors and started the journey back to
the dock. Along the way, we did lots of cleaning and packing and got
all ready to go. The boat that we were on had a slide that went from
the top deck to the bottom, and into the water, but unfortunately it was
unable to be used when we were docked because it was over some rocks in
shallow water. So on the trip back, we decided to stop in the middle of
a channel and get some slide time in. People started sliding, and I
went into a cabin to get my bathing suit on. While in the cabin, the
boat started rocking violently. Apparently a big tour boat had just
passed and created some really big waves. Also, since we were in a
pretty narrow channel, the waves bounced off the vertical cliff walls
and rebounded back in on each other, making it a big choppy mess. At
the worst of it, we heard some very loud crashing, and those who were in
the right areas were able to see the ceramic dishes being ejected from
their cupboard 7 feet off the ground and showered down into the main
room of the boat, shattering and creating nasty glass shards everywhere.
It was quite a mess. At this point, I started feeling seasick from the
significant rocking of the boat. We got the boat started moving again,
and set to work cleaning up the mess. It was pretty exciting.

We eventually got back to the dock, dropped off the boat, and got the
cars packed (Liz drove one car down from Idaho, and Eryn had his dad's
car), and we hit the road, headed back to Vegas. I somehow ended up in
the car with Liz, who drove with us for a portion of the trip until our
roads parted ways. I don't know Liz that well, but it was really fun to
get to talk to her more. We talked about her job, and relationships and
so forth. She's a cool chick. She knows a lot about music, and
generally oozes a certain edgy style and hipness. Her job, as a
marketing and PR rep for an "extreme sports" fashion brand basically
means she takes products and makes them cool. By comparison, I felt
pretty geeky, but I'm used to it. She's moving down to San Diego soon,
hopefully with Eryn, and hopefully in such a way that we'll get to see
more of her.

It was great to see Mike, as well. I don't keep in touch with him very
well, but whenever we see each other, I feel like it's like we talk to
each other every day. He's always silly and fun and cracks me up.
Which isn't to say that Iwan and Eryn are slouches either. At work, I
feel like I'm a pretty funny guy, but with these guys, I feeling like
I'm struggling just to keep up. It was really great to spend some
quality time with those guys.

When we did part ways, I got in the car with Eryn and Kris and Iwan and
Mike, and got the back middle hump ("I called it! I call the hump!").
We drove the rest of the way to Vegas, playing a lot of Hangman and
schooled each other. After many rounds of 'Man, I noticed that no one
picked the letter "F", so I tried the word "fluffy" and schooled 'em
good. It was fun.

I was dropped off at the airport two hours early, got in some good book
reading time, and eventually made it to San Diego. Dad picked me up and
brought me to his house, where I got in my waiting car and made it home
to my sleeping wife. I was exhausted after a long, long day of
travelling.

Now, back at work, I'm totally wiped. Eryn's cousin was sick during the
trip, and I'm kind of worried that I've picked up what he had. My
sinuses and head feel generally unhappy. In spite of that, though, I'm
really pleased at how the trip went off without a hitch, and I think
everyone had a really great time. I'm sure I did.

Look for pictures coming soon!