Vacation on a Houseboat No Picnic
/The Boston Herald
So here we are, two adults, three teenagers and one 11-year-old, two days after leaving Boston, finally at Lake Powell, a crowded place, people scurrying from parking lot to marina with coolers and pillows and cartons of food, looking as diligent as a colony of ants. I am astounded by the crowds of people preparing to go out on the lake, lugging radios and rafts and infinite cases of beer down the long incline to load onto their boats. "Is this you first trip?" we ask everyone we meet. "No, we do this every year," is the repeated reply. If all these people do this every year, houseboating must be fun I say to my husband and he says to me. The kids look around then look at each other and silently shake their heads.
One young woman enthusiastically shares her experience in the wild with us and guarantees that this trip will be one we will never forget. "You need to bring Ivory soap," she says. "It floats and when you're bathing it's not fun to lose the soap in the lake." Bathing in the lake? What does she mean, bathing in the lake? "And you absolutely must have Lysol because the holding tank can be a problem. You really shouldn't use the toilet unless it becomes absolutely necessary.”
Not use the toilet for seven days? This person is obviously joking.
"Did you bring pillows and towels? And what about a cooler? A cooler's a must because keeping things cold is one of the biggest problems you're going to have. We didn't bring a cooler. We didn't bring towels. None of us has ever gone seven hours without a toilet never mind seven days. Is it too late to go home?
"Don't worry," she says. "You're gonna have the best time of your lives." And then this stranger pulls a huge Coleman cooler from the trunk of her car, a cooler filled with bacon, turkey, chili, cheese, coffee, even a coffee maker and gives it to us, refusing money, insisting that we go and enjoy ourselves. A trip to the supermarket, two rubber rafts and 10 cases of cold drinks later and we're ready to sail.
For seven days my husband will drive a 50-foot dwelling. Not a difficult task, everyone tells him. But my captain, when at the wheel, is unable to see what is beside or in back of him. So we, his crew, position ourselves to yell directions, relaying orders because the engine shreds our words the second they are spoken.
"There's a small boat behind you," comes the message as he backs out of the marina for the first time. "Be careful on your right." "Slow." "Slow ." "Turn her.” Then there is a crash and people come running. What did we hit? It didn't feel as if we hit anything.
WE didn't crash. Some other houseboat trying to get into a slot near us rammed into a new speedboat making a gaping hole in its shiny, fiberglass side.
But anyone can drive these things, right? Right. Absolutely no problem - as long as you stay in the middle of the lake.
Which we do, for hours. But as night approaches and the sun sinks behind the mountains, we can no longer put off the inevitable. The time has come to dock this thing. The captain chooses a straight beach with the nearest houseboat half a football field away. He heads directly for the shore, rams the boat onto the sand, then secures it with two anchors. Not easy but not hard. He thinks maybe he's a natural at this.
Nightfall comes and we're all outside on the roof wrapped in our sleeping bags not because we're tired. It's only 8:30 but bugs have appeared, tiny flea-like things, attracted by light and flying in squadrons, hell bent on nesting in every visible human eye, ear and nose. To thwart their plan, we hide in the darkness.
Eventually we fall asleep only to be awakened by pelting rain and a wind that yanks our anchors out of the sand, sends our houseboat whirling and flings our lifejackets into the water. The boys leap into the lake where I am positive a monster lurks waiting to snap off their limbs with the indifference of a woman preparing green beans.
"Get out of the water! Forget the life jackets. Return to the boat!" I yell, longing for 911 and EMTs and streetlights and sirens and all the wonderful services we left behind.
In the morning when I awaken to the sound of a motorboat pulling water skiers at 5:30 (so much for the serenity of nature) and see people from other neighboring houseboats heading toward the woods, shovel in one hand and coffee and toilet paper in the other, I want to go home.
And so it went, day after day. Anchor the boat against a tree then watch the boat float away when the "tree" turns out to be driftwood. Panic when a child gets too close to a motor or takes a spill because the closest hospital is more than a half day away.
We take a four hour, round-trip drive in a motorboat we’ve dragged along to buy ice and cold drinks, of which there are never enough. Then we come back and read until the bugs bite again. We read and we play gin rummy. Every day the air is glazed with heat and every night the sky is bright with stars.
Did you have a good time, people ask now and I don't know how to answer. I loved the experience. I loved the beauty of the place. I didn't have a bad time. But I missed civilization.
We turned in our houseboat a day early and checked into a hotel. We ate in an air-conditioned restaurant. We sprawled on our beds and watched TV. And when it was time to sleep, we watched the bugs and the great outdoors from behind closed windows. And not one of us soft suburbanites said we wished we were outside again looking up at the stars.
