Monday Madness

Today it's all about the food. I had spent several hours gathering everyone's food wants, and then compiled a series of lists to help navigate thru the process of gathering all the food -10 people for 7 days. My final product was three semi- organized lists - one for the guys and two for the girls.

It cracked me up to watch eight shopping carts head in to Wal Mart so completely on a mission. I made them all stop so we could get a picture, and then it was every cart for himself.

It was hysterical to run into each other and compare carts, or desperately try to find someone to ask a question or get advice. And then there was the "don't catch me" maneuver when you would surprise someone who didn't want you to see what they had, and they would mysteriously slip quickly around the corner to avoid you. Gary once caught Britt with something in his hand looking both ways to see if anyone was watching and then quickly sticking it in his cart.

Two hours later we convened at the checkout. Gary asked me to watch to see if there were any duplicate items, or if I thot we had over purchased on something. That was hard to do because each item meant something to someone. In the end I pulled out a duplicate on soda and two small cans of sliced olives. I'm not the best food police.

It took between 30 - 45 minutes to completely check out. All the while we were guessing the total. The checker was getting quite a kick out of all of us. I asked her how often she she checked big order like this. Since this is the last grocery stop before this part of Lake Powell I thot she must do this quite often and imagined she would say something like two days. She told me she has never checked out this many carts of groceries before and she has worked there nearly a year. Britt guessed the closest to the final amount - within $6 of the total. Any guesses out there??

Now packing all this food in a way that makes it transportable for a 170 miles at 100 plus degrees is quite a challenge. We had two monster ice chests and the bbow but there were more perishable foods that the ice chests could hold. Gary had to purchase another as we were all in the Wal Mart parking lot. We were quite a spectacle and even the Wal Mart greeters came out to chat with us and offer assistance.

Now Honcoop men are notoriously good packers and it was amazing how they made it happen. Incredibly the sky had filled with threatening clouds as we shopped and it was obvious a storm was all around us but it never sputtered rain till we were completely loaded. This was an amazing blessing.

We tried to grab a quick bite at the Sonic there, but they must have not gotten the "quick" memo cause they were not. They didn't get the "correct" memo cause our order came wrong. In fact, they didn't get the "fresh" memo either cause half our food was cold. Gary and I LOVE Sonics and this was definitely a fluke.

We drove in a caravan: Brandon & Greta pulling the boat, Britt & Shana in the Mustang, and Ross & Taya with us in the bbow. Isaiah was able to take his nap in the back and that was nice.

This road was incredibly straight and we made one stop in Hanksville to top off fuel before we got to the marina. The convenience store of the gas station was completely built into a the rock. There was just a single door in the side of the rock and everyone had to go in and investigate.

It was nearly 8 pm when we got to our launch site at the Bullfrog Marina so we tried to visually catalog what stores were available for the morning. We needed a few boating items and all our milk for the week. We had Motel rooms for all the kids and we were able to get dinner there before putting Isaiah down for the nite. I gathered laundry and was brot over to the staff laundry facility while the boys ran around getting everything ready for the morning.

We have a block of time assigned to us to board the houseboat, get our safety training and launch. Our block is from 9 - 12. We read the 5-day weather report at dinner which said HOT with temps ranging from 102 - 107 degrees. We were thankful for a morning slot.

Back at the bbow I was furiously going thru all our stuff deciding what comes on the boat and what doesn't wanting as much to be ready as possible. It's gonna be a huge day. Loading in no small or easy task, but we can't wait!