Trying to Recuperate

I think I need another vacation to recuperate from my vacation! After returning from the trip Sunday evening, I've been unsuccessfully trying to play catch up on rest and sleep the past few days. Something always seems to come up, and I haven't been able to get in enough sleep, which is really wearing on me...

How about a recap of our Deathboating adventure?
Let me just emphasize again that the trip was awesome and we all had a great time. After all the incidents that happened (and everyone really is okay, a little hurt, but okay), we couldn't do much but shrug it off and laugh about or misfortune.

So, Cory and Alyssa picked me up, and with all of our gear and their jetski in tow, we departed for Lake Mead on Monday afternoon. The ride was pretty uneventful, just your typical drive towards Vegas, and we made it to Callville Bay around sunset just in time for check-in. To get the crapload of gear we had from the car down the hill and across the dock, we had to take a few wheel-barrelling trips, which was kind of fun. We loaded our stuff onto the houseboat, put up some pirate decorations (it was a pirate-themed vacation, afterall), and took a tour of the AWESOME boat. On the first deck was the living room, with two pull-out bed couches, the dining area and kitchen, two bathrooms and four bedrooms. Then up the stairs was the second floor, which was a huge sun deck complete with a jacuzzi, bar, and slide (into the lake). It was a sweet, SWEET party boat. Cory brought a pole to fly our pirate flag on, so the boys set it up at the back of the houseboat, making our pirate ship complete (see photos, it looked great.) The rest of our first night, we just drank and waited for everyone to show up--there was a total of 10 of us on the boat: Cory, Alyssa, Meg, Liam, Pat, Shelby, Cameron, Chandler, Mark, and me.

Tuesday morning, we left Callville Bay and headed deeper into Lake Mead, and docked in a little cove for a few days. It was a very muddy area, and hard to walk through--every step you took, your foot sank deep into it the soft muddy stuff. We named it Dookie Bay. Spent our time swimming and boozing, sliding and drinking while floating, and swimming and boozing some more. Good times! We took the speed boat out that day and Meg, Alyssa and Cory tried some wakeboarding. And that afternoon, we had some fun with the potato gun that Liam made and brought along for or pirating pleasure. It was a pretty rad potato gun, and it's amazing how for the potatoes can be shot with just a touch of aquanet hairspray.

Up until this point, our trip was going wonderfully. Sure, Meg hit her head a few times on things like the ceiling fan, but that's normal for her. The mishaps didn't start until Wednesday afternoon when everyone went tubing...It probably wasn't the best idea, because that's when several of our accidents occurred. (And it's probably a good thing that I didn't go. I decided that if I were to get hurt doing something, it would at least be while trying to wakeboard, so I was saving my injuries, if any were to occur, for later.) Being towed behind the speedboat at insane speeds means that when you crash, you really crash and burn and the water feels more like concrete rather than water. This is what happened to Shelby, who suffered some sort of concussion and had a headache for the rest of the trip. Chandler had the wind knocked out of him and injured his shoulder again. And then, while docking the speed boat after the tubing was finished, Liam was walking around in the dookie mud and sliced his foot on something. We're not sure what, but think it was one of the clam shells that were everywhere. Good thing Chan use to be a fireman (stopped because he had a shoulder injury. Yep, that same one that he hurt again while tubing) and dealt with first-aiding Liams foot. It was a pretty deep cut, enough where they could see his fat, and so we called park services, who told us to take him over to the nearest bay (about a 15-20 minute boat ride away). So off Liam, Meg, Cory and Alyssa went to meet the park ranger. The rest of us stayed behind and played a fun game of Cranium while waiting to see what happened. The speed boat returned to drop Cory and Alyssa back at the houseboat--apparantly, Liam needed stitches and there was nothing park services could do to help with that. So Meg had to take Liam back to Callville Bay, racing against the setting sun (being stuck out on a huge lake in the dark is not a good idea), and drive him to the ER for his stitches.

The Ferris' stayed on land for the night, and returned to the houseboat on Thursday morning. Liam was doing okay, even with the limping and stitches in his foot, although he was very bummed that he couldn't go in the water for the rest of the trip. By this point, everyone was pretty sore from being towed behind the boat and knocked around in the water. Cameron had to go back home a day early, so Meg, having been appointed Captain of the speed boat, had to take another trip back to Callville Bay to drop him off at his car. I joined them for this trip, and we made great timing out there. Right outside of the bay-we were so close we could almost reach out and touch it-the engine decides to DIE ON US! We couldn't believe it-was this really happening? Hasn't enough gone wrong? Apparantly not. Stuck in the blazing heat, we called the bay for help, and they said they would be sending someone out. After an hour of huddling under the sliver of shade the boat's canopy provided, and jumping in the water multiple times to cool off, the help finally showed up. They couldn't get the boat to start up again, so we had to be towed in. Good thing the boat renters were very nice about it, and immediately gave us a set of keys for another boat. We didn't have to linger and deal with the problems with this one, so headed off back to our vacationing. We met up with Houseboat M7 as they were finishing up at the Dookie dock, and headed out to find a new bay to dock our boat in. As we were making our way into Burro Bay, we had to stop to release the jetski and speed boat before the houseboat could be docked. It took a little too long to release the boats and the wind picked us up a little too quickly, and when we started up the engines again it was too late to avoid hitting the rocky shore. Our right propeller grinded against the rocks, and for a moment, the engine wouldn't start up again. We finally got it up and going and successfully docked the boat, but not without a damaged propeller. That afternoon, Chandler, Alyssa, Meg, Mark and I took the boat out for a round of wakeboarding. My goal for the trip was to be able to get up and stay up on the wakeboard, and I was a little nervous that it would take me try after frustrating try to do that (it took me a whole day of trying before I got the hang of waterskiing). So, I was first to go, and surprisingly popped up and started cruising during my first try--which was AWESOME. It was kind of like snowboarding, and so much fun skimming across the water at high speeds. One wrong move, however, means a faceplant and rolling across concrete-water. I wakeboarded a couple of times, and after reaching my goal and gaining a few bruises along with it, let the next person have a go at it. Everyone did a great job, especially Alyssa and Meg who impressed us with going outside and back in both wakes. Unfortunately, Chandler hurt his shoulder even more, which wasn't a good thing (his arm is in a sling right now, with possible surgery in the future.) We all headed back to the houseboat around sunset, and decided to do some swimming and sliding and picture-taking. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen (see picture)--just so peaceful and breathtaking to be out on an empty lake and having the sky light up with such amazing colors. This was our last night on the boat, and we were going to end it with a bang, so the drinks were flowing and the music came on for our PDDDP (Pirate Dookie Deathboat Dance Party, that is) on the sun deck. Nothing like dancing under the stars on a deserted lake with all of your friends.

Friday morning was time to head back to Callville Bay. We were supposed to be at the bay by noon so the boat could be serviced and docked, and for us to unload all of our stuff by 2pm. The problem was noone knew the exact time because there wasn't a working clock, watch, or cell phone on the boat. That, and we were a little slow-moving after a week of partying. So we finally departed Burro Bay, a little late. By 2pm, we were still on the water right outside the bay, and received an irritated call from the staff there asking where we were. Oops, just another thing gone wrong on our deathboating experience. The houseboat got in eventually and everything was serviced and checked off. The only thing was that we had to unload our stuff and wheel barrel it down the dock and up a hill on a blazing-hot-120 degree day! It was torture. And I didn't know I could sweat so much. Literally, disgustingly, dripping-from-my-neck-down-to-my-ankles kind of sweat. I was practically melting. And a breeze had never felt so glorious. ECH!!

Leaving Lake Mead, it was off to Vegas we went, for a weekend of continued partying and to celebrate Meg's 27th birthday. It was so refreshing to be able to take a shower after all that sweating, rather than having to sit in a 6-hr car ride home in your own stink. We all stayed at the Monte Carlo. Drank and danced some more at the Pub in the hotel on Friday night. Saturday, I visited Stef over at the Mirage Dolphin Habitat, where she's now working, then spent the rest of the afternoon drinking mimosas by the pool. That night, we did dinner and dancing at Rum Jungle, then watched the boys do a little gambling. I got to bed at 5am, and woke up at 9am to pack up and get ready for our long journey home. And that, kids, was the recap of my awesome Pirate Dookie Deathboat 2006 vacation. I'm so happy to have such wonderful friends, who were able to have fun despite the mishaps we had.