Dehydration...& Lake Powell!

Don’t ever let yourself get dehydrated! It is really, really not fun. Especially when it get’s worse than just being thirsty. The apartment that Matt and I live in right now is…let’s just say, not well insulated. It also came with a less-than-satisfactory air conditioning unit that only works some of the time. This is a very bad combination for an apartment facing the sun in the middle of a Utah desert summer! Our bedroom has consistently been around 88 degrees, even at night. Needless to say, we have stopped sleeping in the bedroom, on our wonderfully soft queen bed because it’s just too hot. Fortunately, the apartment that we are renting for the summer is normally men’s housing, so it came equipped with three bedrooms and three sets of bunk beds. Also fortunately, Matt is very strong and buff and he has been bringing out one of the twin beds from the other rooms to the front room and setting it right in front of the a/c unit for us to sleep on. Yes, we have been sleeping on a twin bed in our front room every night ☺. To tell you the truth, it hasn’t been so bad! We’ve often talked about how we are going to look back on this time together and laugh about it. We end up waking each other up a lot during the night, but cuddling really close with your husband all night long is an amazing thing, and is something that we won’t be able to do forever, so I’ve been enjoying the time while we have it.

Anyway, back to getting dehydrated. Matt and I joined Matt’s family and the Schauerhamer’s (cousin’s family) in Lake Powell this week from Tuesday to Thursday. We were both able to switch some shifts with people at work to make it happen and we’ve been looking forward to it for a little while now. We made the six hour drive south to the Wahweap marina with Cami and Justin Moody, who also happened to be going, and met the fam out on the boat. We spend Tuesday afternoon boating out to a beach, setting up, eating lunch, hiding from some rain, playing catch, and going wakeboarding out on the boat. We weren’t out for very long, however, because Matt’s cousin Sam took a bad tumble and we thought he had a head injury, so we went in early. I did get to go on the wakeboard for one go-around before we went back though. It took me three tries, but I did make it up and held it for…a little while. And then the wake came back to get me and I just got swallowed right back into it. Oh well. I did make it up! I’m counting it as a success! Before I went, Matt went, and he is just amazing. Okay, so he doesn’t wakeboard a ton or anything, but he made it up solidly on his second go and he held it for a long time. He was going in and out of the wake and holding the rope with one hand! He looked great! On his last go he was determined to show us that he could get sweet air, so he went out wide to the right, bent down really low, came back in and pulled up. He really did get two to three feet of air before he fell in. He counts it as getting 10 feet of air because he’s 6’6”…I just think he’s great ☺. We stayed in a hotel in Page, AZ for the two nights that we were there. For whatever reason there was a sizeable group of French tourists at our hotel and I got to talk to them a little bit. I asked a little boy why they were visiting and he said they were seeing everything. I’m assuming that means the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, and Southern Utah, because you just don’t see those things in France. Later his dad was asking me questions as to why I spoke French and if I had ever been to France. I was a little shaky, but I felt good conversing with him. At the end he told me that I speak very well. I really appreciated that.

Wednesday was our touring day. We spent several hours going to different Lake Powell destinations. The lake is about 100 miles long and it took us quite a while to get to our different stops, but they were magnificent. Because we were spending so much time sitting on the boat exposed to the sun all of Wednesday, I was feeling fairly under the weather. My stomach was a little unsettled and a had a bit of a headache. I was drinking just as much water as everyone else, so I figured that I was fine, but it kept getting worse. Fortunately, I was still feeling okay when we made it to our various stops.

Our first destination was Rainbow Bridge. It was amazing! It’s basically just a really, really tall arch made of red rock. We were able to hike a ways to get closer to it and take some pictures. It is so tall! Very cool thing to see. Our next stop was Hole in the Rock.

This was this “knotch” found in a wall of red rock that sloped downward that a group of pioneers led their handcarts and oxen and horses down in order to keep going on their journey. It was hard not to wonder if they hadn’t thought of any other options, because this looked absolutely impossible to even walk down individually, much less with a giant wooden cart, livestock, and families. There is a tremendous story told accompanying this site. I don’t know all of the details, but all of the handcarts had made it down with four men holding the back of them, and one leading the horse in the front. This went on until all of the carts had made it down except for the last one. The husband of this cart had been one of the men helping with the other carts, but the rest of the company was on their way and there was no one left to help him with his cart. Him and his wife and children said a fervent prayer, and then the wife strapped herself to the back of the cart as her husband led it and their children were inside it. She knew that if she were to let go they would all fall to their death. She was miraculously able to hold the cart, as four men had done previously, even though she broke her leg from the tension on the way down, and they made it to safety. What an amazing story! Just looking at the path that they took put chills down my spine after realizing what holding back a cart down that slope really meant. Incredible.

Our next visit was Cathedrals Canyon. This was so cool! It was just a small passage that could not fit more than one boat, but that had soaring red rock on either side of it, probably 70 or 80 feet tall. We had to have people guarding all corners of the boat because it was such a tight squeeze and we did not want it to hit. We took the boat back as far as it would go and we were able to make it to a place to turn it around. The canyon continued on for a really long ways, and some of us got out and swam some distance after the boat could not go any further. That was really cool! We were swimming in between giant rock that was only as wide as two or three wingspans!


That night was not a fun one. I got pretty sick and had a fever and was achey and had chills the whole night through. I didn’t sleep much because I kept trying to get warm, even though my skin was burning. The rest of the family went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant, while Matt stayed behind to take care of me. What a sweetheart. We had to make the six hour drive back the next day, so I wanted to feel at least a little better, but that didn’t happen. I sat curled up in the front seat with Cami’s pillow and blanket trying not to think about how much my body was hurting. Matt concluded that even though I was drinking water while we were on the boat, I had started the trip partially dehydrated because of the state of our apartment, and being out in the sun all day just pushed my body over the top. I was able to find temporary relief in Tylenol extra strength and Ibuprofen, but Matt tried diligently to keep me away from them because it didn’t want me to have too many or to just mask the symptoms. What a smart man…though the relief was extremely appealing. The aches and burning skin and headache went on Wednesday night, Thursday, Thursday night, Friday, Friday night, Saturday, Saturday night, and, well now it’s Sunday, and I am feeling much better. I haven’t slept much, I haven’t eaten much, and I’ve drunk enough liquids to float something really heavy, I’m sure of it. The most amazing part about all of this, though, is how wonderful and helpful that Matt has been through all of this. I’ve hardly gotten up once to get myself more water or Gatorade and Matt has been doing all of the food preparation and, well everything else for us both. Isn’t being married the best?!

Matt and I were able to make our weekly temple trip yesterday. We went to the Draper, UT temple, which is absolutely stunning. I love going to the temple with Matt. We are going to try to make an effort to attend as many different temples as we can. So far together we have gone to Draper, UT, Chicago, IL, Bountiful, UT, Mount Timpanogos, UT, and Salt Lake, UT. The Provo temple is closed for cleaning and renovations for a while, but that one will quickly be added to our list when it is open again. I just love the peace and refinement that comes from visiting the temple. Whenever I have gone with the right mindset and have focused on spiritual matters while I am there, I have always come away feeling refreshed inspired to action. Going with Matt has been so wonderful because we are able to share those feelings. We have committed to attend the temple at least once every week for the rest of our lives, and I am really looking forward to it. I’m feeling much better now, hopefully that keeps up. And hopefully our a/c starts working better! Overall, life is just wonderful.