Lake Mead

Surprisingly enough, Rick and Stacey invited us back to Lake Mead over the 4th! Rick left at 4am Thursday morning with Richard and Debbi so they could get there early and get a good beach. Stacy left later that day and we decided we liked sleeping past 4am and could work, then drive down with her. Well around 10am on Thursday morning we hear that Debbi and Richard’s truck broke down just outside of Mesquite. They had to get a rental car and drove a mini van in style the rest of the way! We got down around 7pm and began unpacking the tremendous amount of stuff we had. We were diving this trip so that meant a whole lot more stuff! When we got everything loaded, we headed out to the beach. It was Amy’s birthday on Tuesday so we celebrated by having a “Beach Night” theme. We didn’t do much that night since it was freaking hot and everyone was exhausted.

The next day as soon as we came out of the boat, we realized how hot it really was. 120 degrees to be exact. We spent the entire day in the water. It was so much fun though. We all had rafts and drinks and we just enjoyed the sunshine. At some point Morgan and Andrea came up in their boat, but they were not docking it so we tied all our rafts together to a rope tied to their boat and floated. The nice part about that was that if we needed anything, food, drink, sunscreen, Morgan was right there to get it. Oh, and he supplied some great music for us to dance and float to!

As soon as we got hungry, we got all decked out in our 4th of July attire and temporary tatoos (hence the pictures!!) and went to Tom and Susan’s houseboat for dinner. They have one of those HUGE industrial misting fans which cools it down a ton so it is nice to be up there. We all brought different dishes for dinner and had some really good food!

The next day was spent doing pretty much the same thing! We spent some time during the day on the top of the houseboat (with the fan!) and also took the boat out for a dive. This was my first dive at Lake Mead (Lance went last time we were down) and it was okay. I have to be honest, once you dive in the Caribbean; a Lake is not going to seem all that cool. It was still fun to dive though. And once we hit about 30 feet, the water temp dropped about 10-15 degrees. Although I didn’t like that, it was definitely a cool down for everyone else!

That night we celebrated Donnie’s 50th Birthday!! He loves NASCAR so the theme of the night was of course that. We all had so much fun choosing our outfits and decorating. Lance made some sexy cutoff shorts and a kid’s NASCAR t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. It was hot!! I helped Billie and Susan with the food and it was all named something clever after NASCAR. Then we ate, took some pictures and had a great time!

Later that night we were listening to music and dancing on the boats. Lance and Rick saw a pillow in between the boats so they came up with a great idea to link together still attached to the boat and get the pillow. Not a good idea! Rick ended up falling in and Lance almost did too. I will admit, it made for a hilarious scene though!

The next day we just cleaned up and drove home. Richard and Debbi rode with us after they dropped off their rental in St. George. The back was really full with all our stuff and now all theirs too. So we're driving and all the sudden Rick sees a big bin fly out the back. We figure out it was Debbi's and could have important stuff so we turned around and by the time we got to it, someone was picking it up and putting it in their car!! Debbie went up to them and they let her get it out of their back seat. I could not believe somone stopped for it! We were all dying laughing!

Overall, it was a great trip... and, I didn’t break anything! The only mishap was me falling down the stairs in the boat. But, in my defense, I wasn’t the first to do it (sorry for laughing when Candice did :)) and wasn’t the last either. Those stairs are steep and when you’re walking down them in bare, wet feet, it doesn’t go well!