And Now the Hard Part

By 11 AM we were nearing the marina so Brandon and Gary got in the ski boat and went ahead to get it loaded for travel. The rest of us sorted, packed and cleaned so we could make the best time at getting off the boat.

Britt and Shana will actually fly out of Salt Lake City late today so they have a big day and will need to be the first to leave. Britt figured out all the modes of transportation he will experience in this one day and it is impressive: houseboat, rental car, airplane, shuttle, SUV & pick up. That's a big day.

Before returning your houseboat it must be refueled. You radio ahead when you are near and then are granted permission to dock. Britt pulled that big houseboat right up to the refueling dock perfectly. The fueler even said "in all my years working here that is the best customer docking I've ever seen". He has a gift with vehicles.

After refueling we waited for a docking pilot to come on board and bring our houseboat in. Once we were docked everyone scrambled to load and go. It was at least 100 degrees so it was miserable work. Thankfully we were still able to use their four wheeler and trailer to bring everything to our vehicles. Still, the effort of dividing and sorting everything was monumental.

Britt and Shana did a load and go, so they were the first two on the road. Brandon and Greta helped us sort and pack everything that will go with them back to Lynden in the boat and pick-up. All the rest was thrown into the bbow to go with us. This was all just a big mess and I was completely overwhelmed by it.

Finally it was time to say good bye to Ross, Taya and Isaiah who will be traveling with Brandon and Greta to Salt Lake City tonite and then flying home tomorrow. This was pretty hard on me and I lost it big time. Suddenly it was all over and it just felt so cruel. I was not prepared for how deeply I would feel this. It was depressing. Here I was sitting in this big mess that I couldn't seem to make any sense or order out of. I literally began to stick stuff away to get it out of sight. I just couldn't deal with it.

Our plan is to take a ferry to the other side of the lake and travel from there over towards Canyonlands National Park. We were told the ferry left every other hour from this side but were given the wrong hour. Suddenly we saw it loading (on the wrong hour) We tried but couldn't make it down there on time so had to sit there two hours. Nothing seemed to be going right.

We have no idea where we'll be staying tonite, all our clothes and towels are filthy dirty and Gary has a major head cold. A this point I was second guessing our plans.

Gary decided to lay down while we waited in line for the ferry - a nice bonus traveling in the bbow. It was actually I who drove the bbow onto the ferry. I was pretty proud of myself!

This drive is pretty secluded but interesting and beautiful. We are seeing country we haven't seen before so that is always something we enjoy.

There is a wonderful cure for depression. The two components are thankfulness and worship. I made myself recount everything I was thankful for and then ended that process with a few worship cd's and I was lifted out of the negative pit I had allowed in my heart. It felt like a new day.

There were storm clouds all around us and we got to an area where there had recently been significant rain. In fact the road was still wet. We are also passing thru grazing land and soon we spotted random cattle beside the road. Taryn and Gary saw a monster jack rabbit and quite larger lizard scurry across the road.

We made the decision to skip this entrance to Canyonlands and find an "resort" in a more inhabited location. We have some significant laundry that needs our attention, so we headed on to Blanding Utah. We were way ready for dinner by the time we got there. Not many choices but we did get a good burger and then drove on to Monticello where we stayed at a small but adequate resort.

Gary isn't feeling well and climbed right into bed. Taryn and I played games while waiting for our five loads of laundry to wash and dry. There were four dryers. One had some random mans clothes in it that I didn't want to touch, two barely worked, and the one that worked was so noisy it sounded like a bag of large rocks was in it.

Finally at 11:10 I decided enough is enough. I took out that mans clothes and put our final load of boat towels in it and went to the bbow. We can get those tomorrow.

Tired but not quite ready to sleep I crawled in Taryn's bunk and she read to me while I bandaged up my hands. A week of water and dishes has been hard on my hands and they need some attention. It was blissful to crawl in bed.