#3 Lake Powell

We stopped next at the Lake Powell Visitor Center as we always did on our travels back and forth from Phoenix. The kids always liked this stop because it gave them leave to use the forbidden word: DAM (without the n, of course). “Can we go on the dam tour?” “Just park in the dam parking lot.” “Let’s go down the dam elevator.” “The dam restrooms are over there.” And they'd all giggle their heads off with each new use of “dam.” And, I have to admit that we, adults, reverted back to that mischief as we drove into the "dam" parking lot.

We used to look forward to the elevator ride down into the depths of the Glen Canyon Dam. In the 1970's tours were self-guided and we could venture down by ourselves to see the huge humming generators, then go out the door at the bottom of the dam and gaze up at the tons and tons of concrete towering above us. It was at the bottom of the dam that I caught my first siting of a Black Phoebe.

In 1965, my brother and sister-in-law, and Dale and I borrowed a boat and spent 3 glorious days on Lake Powell. At that time the lake was still filling and there were hundreds of serene sandstone hollows to explore. Each channel was calm and quiet as we stopped the engine and paddled up into the far reaches of the fingers of water. Each little red sand beach would invite us to stay and swim and dive from the red cliffs.

I had actually never been on a boat on the water before! It took some time for me to get used to the water swirling around, not sure that it would not just suck me right in and swallow me up. But I had not ever felt such freedom as I skimmed over the water with the wind blowing in my face, and I gloried in it. On the second night we were all sunburned so badly that we could hardly climb into our sleeping bags.

Everyone tried water-skiing and when it came my turn we were right at the buoys by the dam. I knew that the water was 600 feet deep -- from the dam overlook I had seen some of the humongous fish that swarmed there; and I just knew they were lurking right below me, waiting to eat me up. I never could get up on the skis. My head would go down and my feet would come up and the boat would drag me head down, feet up – trolling for fish. Everyone finally gave up on me and dragged me exhausted, shaking, and scared back into the boat.

We enjoyed that trip so much, that when we got home, we saved and got a small used boat ($600) which we enjoyed all through our Phoenix years, and finally upgraded when we returned to Utah. We were a boating family for 27 years - and in all that time I never again tried to ski!

FYI: Do you know that Page has a WalMart???!!!