2017-08-11 Lake Havasu, End of Season

2017-08-11 Lake Havasu, End of Season

It’s that time of year again where we head to Lake Havasu for one more ”big hurrah” before saying goodbye to early morning wakeboarding, attitude adjustments, and paisties until next summer.  This trip has a mix of Virgin Orbit friends and their family.  Best part about this trip is that this is a multi-boat trip!  Trent is one of our great technicians that work on the Pylon (that’s that part that connect our rocket to our airplane); he and his new wife brought out their brand-spanking new wakeboat for its second trip to havasu.  Well it wasn’t brand new, but Trent bought it with like 15 hours of runtime or some ungodly low number.  I’m pretty sure the guy who sold Trent the boat only took it out for one weekend.  Rich also joined us with his wife and his Stingray runabout.  Rich is a technician in my group; when he’s out in Mojave with me, it’s good times and shenanigans. 

So while it’s hard to corral 8 people, it’s even harder to corral 14 people and 3 boats.  Luckily, most of us knew the lake well enough to just meet up at the major hot spots.  Meetup spot #1, the channel.  When we finally rolled up blaring our super loud music, because that is what Rob does in the channel, it was pretty easy to find Trent’s super sparkly green boat.  Turns out, Trent’s wife has some other friends in town that weekend and we had a lineup of 5 or 6 boats.  Deciding that there was no point is saving gas, we decided to all caravan up the lake to the sandbar.  Initially I was worried that the ‘ol Montery with my 5 blade prop wouldn’t be able to keep up with these guys. Turns out I drive on the water the same way I drive on a road… as fast as I’m able to.  Lol.  But it’s still really fun to see your friends on other boats while you run up the river.  

After a couple of hours at the sandbar, lunch, tossing the ball around, and making Miles swim 20 miles upstream, we decide that all of our boats have too much gas and decide that before boating back, we’d take 4 boats even further up the lake to Red Rock Canyon.  I don’t know if that’s actually what it’s called, but if all of us start calling it that then that is what it will be called.  If that’s the case, I think we should call it Fried Chicken Canyon because I’m hungry right now and fried chicken sounds awesome.  Fried Chicken Canyon has a no wake zone that is surrounded by some gorgeous rocks.  These are the kind of rocks that get into a vegas club when Diplo is Dj-ing for Dr.Dre’s only live performance in the last 20 years and the line is wrapped around the casino floor.  The kind of gorgeous that would make Bill Clinton go, daaaaaaaaaym!  Anyhow, they are pretty.  Unfortunately, the water there has a strong current and is a frigid 72 degrees so most of the time, it’s a quick stop to get in, pee, and get out.  But today we were lucky enough to score a spot on the shoulder to hang out in shallow water. 

SO, in the theme of the summer, wakeboarding has been a priority for the trip.  It’s more important than fishing, more important than sleeping in, more important than sleeping in, more important than sleeping in, OH, did I mention that we didn’t sleep in?  Dude, I’m tired just thinking about it.  However, once we are on the water, all is better, and once we throw the throttle down outside of Thompson bay, things are exceptional, and once we have that first boarder up out of the water and the music gets loud, it’s all ear to ear.  Yeah, so it’s worth it.

Alan is back at it pulling some heavy line behind the boat.  Seems like he’s found his signature move; it’s quite a pretty one at that.  Lani is on for round 2 and she’s made it her goal to show up Alan. With the way Alan is progressing, she’ll be hard pressed to catch up; but then again I’ve never seen Lani bow out of any challenge.  Some call it competitive, some call it stubborn, I call it fun to watch.

On this trip, we have 5 newbies which is a lot of newbies to try to teach in one morning.  Luckily, Trent comes to the rescue with his boat and takes Steven and his lady, Winnie (there are two on this trip) on his boat.  Now onto my task, getting Whitney, Winni W. and Holly up on a wakeboard.  Luckily, while I’m at the helm, Whitney took the initiative to snap some photos of the riders at the other end of the rope.  Somebody arrest this girl, cause she hit gold!  You know that feeling when you’ve been struggling with something and you finally get it?  Kinda feels like…. Uh, Uh, whaa, whaaaaa, ooooOOOOOOOH, holy shit!!!!! What’s going on?!?!?!!  It’s haaaaaaaappennnninnnggggg!!!!  Allow me to show you what that looks like.  

With a my job complete, I sat on the back of the boat with Winni and Miles with a couple fishing rods to bask in the glory of our morning and look forward so the Alan special for breakfast.  Thick cut deli bacon and a pair of sunny side eggs that could run a marathon. Well, at least that’s what he cooks for me; you guys can get your own damn eggs!

So after the post breakfast nap, Whitney goes, Ya know, I just don’t have the space to drink enough beer to get drunk.  Enter Mr. Jameson and Ms. Vodka.  Together, in holy matrimony, they give birth to drunk Whitney and drunk Winni. They are both straight A students but have a knack for getting into trouble.  More importantly, they are Mr.Potatohead (buckets of fun… for everyone).

The whole family and all our friends head to Steamboat for some afternoon floating fun.  Trent meets us there along with some friends.  We hook up, throw out the floaty noodles, turn up the music, and begin the relaxing.  So many stories to tell here, and yet there’s nothing really to tell.  Pretty much, it’s just, these are great friends, we’re having a great time, this place is great, I’m great, it’s all great.  

What’s not great is a boatful of hangry people.  So to havasu springs we go for the, oh so fantastic cheese burgers.  But we can’t just eat, can we?  Luckily the bar has us covered with attitude adjustments, or as Whitney calls it “Green Drink” which later turns into, “No more green drink.”  LOL.  So normally, I buy everyone a round or two of drinks and maybe some nachos and pizza.  This trip however, I decide what these people need is some IIIIIIICEEEEEEE CREEEEAAAAMMMMM.  Here’s how to shop for ice cream: Get Whitney drunk, tell her “Let’s go buy some ice cream” and then let her loose in the freezer section of Havasu springs.  I don’t know what we bought, but we both walked out with literal armfuls of ice cream.  Ice cream sammiches, push pops, fudgesicles, ice cream snicker bars, drumsticks… get the picture?  The 6 year old version of Whitney and I would be soooooooo jealous of us.

Thanks to everyone for such a fantastic trip, and two my two over-sized dice for producing so many rounds of scintillating games of seven-eleven-doubles and for the roof of our Airbnb for being so well placed for jumping into our pool.  Till next season havasu.  Till next season. 

2017-07-01 Lake Havasu, 4th of July

July 4th Weekend - Lake Havasu, AZ

Another summer has arrived and another set of Havasu trips dot these summer weekends.  In recent years, I've avoided the really big weekends out on the lake.  The crowd is insane, everything is more expensive, the water is all chopped up, and there are a bunch of inexperienced boaters on the lake.  This summer, however, we hit 2 of the 3 major weekends for Lake Havasu: Memorial Day and Fourth of July.  Memorial Day was a free-for-all, party-your-ass-off, weekend; whereas July 4th was much more family oriented albeit, just as busy.

This trip consisted on both Lake Havasu long time veterans along with newbies to the lake.  Brandon and Shy is the reason we had this trip, specifically requesting a July 4th trip last summer.  With that much advance notice, I booked our place in Havasu back in January.  Shy smuggled some super illegal filipino cornuts back from the P.I. a couple years back.  I've been obsessed with them ever since.  They say that the cornuts are so salty that one handful will instantly dehydrate the entire population of Los Angeles.  That's why I had to eat them all myself and not share them with anyone.

Add to the trip, fellow wakeboarders and current residents of Edmonds, WA: Justin and Morgan. They were super pumped to get back on a wakeboard this summer and definitely got their pulls in.  

Hot off his wakeboarding debut at Lake Elsinore, Alan gets his first taste of glassy water during our first sunrise wakeboard session.  During the trip, he gets way better at riding and also learns an important lesson: if you hang your tongue out like Michael Jordan when you ride, you'll bite it off like Hannibal Lecter.  Don't worry, Alan still has most of it left.

Lani joins us as the most unemployed person on the trip.  She left Virgin Orbit literally hours before we left LA.  She's now back in Colorado where the Coors flows from the factory like, well, like it does in Lake Havasu.  When she's not traveling around the world, she'll be deciding between her 20 modes of transportation to and from her new job at the National Reusable Energy Lab (they make blim blams out of gork glups; j/k). 

And of course Holly was there to not only celebrate my birthday on my birthday, but also for my entire birthday weekend!  Apparently we partied to hard on my actual birthday and ended up with the flu all weekend and by the end of the weekend had pneumonia.  Lesson learn: get sick at the end of your vacation, not at the beginning. 

My Lake Havasu trips are very tailored to who comes on the trips, and this trip had mostly wakeboarders.  The result?  Early morning sessions everyday, and even a couple evening ones also.  Check out these guys rip it. 

The best part about waking up at 5:30 am to wakeboard is not only the great water conditions, its also that breakfast is 10x better after you've worked up an appetite.  By 10 am, it feels like you've already done a full days worth of activities!  That's probably why most of the people took naps after breakfast...

Nonetheless, after a quick nap, a few beer-mosas, some pumping up music, and perhaps a drinking game or two, we are all ramped up to head back out on the lake for some serious floating. 

Being that July 4th was on a tuesday this year, we got 4 full days out on the lake.  FANTASTIC! That also means we got to cover the lake pretty well, which includes a day at the historic sandbar.  Back in its day, the Sandbar was THE spot.  There used to be a large area of ankle deep water where you could walk around and party.  The city has decided to flood the sandbar in recent years to keep the number of boaters to a manageable amount, as opposed to this.

While the sandbar has started to dwindle in its popularity, Copper Canyon still remains a frequently visited area.  It is only about a 5 minute boat ride from the edge of Thompson Bay, and the high canyon walls makes the area feel like its a room on its own.  When we were out for Memorial Day saturday, we got lined up with a dozen or so boats in a big party, but I still have never seen anything like this.

With the big two hot spots checked off the list, its time for my favorite place on the lake, Steamboat Cove!  I heard someone in the marina saying that it was called Steamboat Cove because there is a sunken Steamboat down there and that you can dive down and still see it.  I couldn't confirm that anywhere so I'm guessing that it was made up by a 16 year old who was trying to impress a girl, who then told her boyfriend, who was the captain of Esperanza High School football team and told all of them, who then told their older siblings, who then came to Lake Havasu for Fourth of July, who then told some people in line at the marina, which I totally overheard their conversation.  But that's just a guess. 

HOWEVER, Lake Havasu was named after the Mojave Indian Tribe's word for 'blue'.  That was from the internet, so you know its true.

ANYHOW, Steamboat Cove is halfway to the best burgers on the lake and the strongest drinks on the lake, Havasu Springs bar.  I've never left there unhappy, though every other time I'm there, some lady walks off with Miles.

Justin is a huge fan of Micro breweries and there are 3 or 4 in Lake Havasu, the best one being Hangar 24 which is part of the Lake Havasu airport for private planes.  Instead of napping one night, Justin headed out there to check it out and ended up bringing back a few 6 packs which we very quickly broke into.  The next night, we headed over to get out of the house and have a couple drinks and mix it up with the locals. 

With our fourth and final full day in Lake Havasu, we decide on a relaxing day on the lake in preparation for a sunset evening in the lake as the sky falls and we get ready for fireworks.  I've always thought that floating in the water and watching fireworks launch from 100 yard away was the coolest way to enjoy fourth of July fireworks.  After doing it again this year, it is totally confirmed.  While the lake is full of red, green, and white navigation lights from all the boats anchored in Thompson Bay, the sky looks empty and open, with only the light from the stars and the moon and the occasional quad-copter...  If this sounds awesome to you, lemme know that you want to go next year and I'll book the place in January again!!

Check out the video of the Grand Finale.  I think the fireworks show was over 20 minutes!

Thanks to all of you guys for coming!  I had a blast and you are all a solid group of people!