What a weekend....in Glendo, WY
<novel>
Father's Day Weekend '07 had it's ups and downs, that's for sure! Every year we go up to Glendo Reservoir in Wyoming for Father's Day. This year instead of taking Friday off, we decided we would just go on Saturday.
Friday afternoon my brother called and asked if he could pick up the boat for me since he was off. I get home right about the time he is pulling up with the boat. He starts to back the boat into my driveway (since I got a warning for parking it in the street on Wednesday) and the truck makes a loud squeal and then bam, no power steering. UGH! Truck blew the p/s pump! I told everyone that we would cancel the trip and fix the truck on saturday and just goto our regular lake on Sunday. My brother (Joe), and my buddy Clint then say "Well how about some good news?".
Okay... They open up the tailgate on the Avalanche and hand me a Tsunami pump and then say "Oh, we picked you up the Fly High V-drive sacks (550lbs each) and a pump so we need to go to the lake this weekend!". Oh man, if that wasn't motivation to fix the truck right then and there, I don't know what would be!
After about 6 hours of misc. problems getting the p/s pump replaced, we finished up right about 1:00am. I get up at 6:45 am and load the truck and by the time everyone got over there we finally rolled out for our 180 mile drive at 9:00am. Woot! Get up to Glendo and setup our campsite in the open area with no trees/shade since that's all there was left, oh joy! By this time it's just a tad over 90 degrees outside and no clouds.
Let the fun begin! Got the boat out, filled up the sacks and the surfing was amazing! I was sooo happy with the new wave behind the boat!!!
After a few hours of playing around we saw some storm clouds move in so we decided to head for the boat ramp. We sat at the ramp for 1/2 hour just kind of waiting to see what the weather would do. Finally the clouds parted and moved the opposite direction and the sun was shining so we decided to go surf again. Bad idea!
While Clint was surfing we saw a few strikes of lightning off in the distance so we decided to pack up and head for the ramp. By this time we were pretty far away from a good shoreline or the ramp. We start heading in and about 5 minutes in the wind kicks up and it starts to rain so I put in the windscreen (under the windshield). Then it happened....
The Storm
....here's one of the scariest moments of my life
The wind kicked up to 30, 40, 50 mph - don't even know! In a matter of moments the waves were 3'-4', it was raining and the wind was out of control! Waves began crashing over the nose of the boat even though I was driving 10 mph with taps at like 5 to get that nose up. The first big one scared everyone to death because the water was 3/4 of the way up the windscreen and flip flops were floating behind it. Clint pulled the windscreen to let the water in so the bilge could take care of it and the Amplifier wouldn't get wet. Then I have no idea how many more waves crashed over the starboard side and the nose but pretty soon my boat had water up to the seat cushions in it and more was coming in.
We were close to the ramp now and I could see 3 other boats trying to get near it, there was no way you could put a boat on a trailer in these conditions and we were still taking on water. We saw another Tige doing circles to keep his nose up and water from getting in the boat. Unfortunately there was a small fishing boat close to shore that was getting close to going under. At this point I was trying to figure out a way to get the 3 girls off the boat (my wife, my 7 year old daughter and my brother's GF) but there wasn't a safe place to pull in to shore.
I got everyone to calm down and told Clint to break out the Tsunami pump to start getting water out. Holy crap does that thing do work!!!! We got the main area pumped down in just a few minutes while I drove to the sandy beach where the rest of our friends were staying. Somehow we made it to that area with the boat bogging down and taking on more and more water. As we got close I saw 2 of my buddies on the shore and they swam out to help the girls (who had lifejackets on) get in to shore safely through the waves. They all got up to shore and everyone was trying to figure out what I should do. I continued to circle slowly to minimize the amount of water being taken on and the storm started to die down.
While the storm was calming, Joe and Clint continued to pump the water out of the boat. They popped the engine hatch and the water was 3/4 of the way up the engine so they dropped the tsunami into the engine compartment to help out. After about 20 minutes the engine compartment was pumped out and the storm was calming down. A quick check of the fluids and systems revealed that everything was A-OK!
Once the storm water was calm again we had to wait for the docks to clear so what would you do? Surf of course (ballast free). Clint busted out the surfboard and we drove by the shoreline with everyone looking at us in astonishment as he rode by!
It took a few hours for everyone to calm down after what happened but we all realized that if we had been in our old boat, we would have been wearing orange life vests and trying to figure out how to get our boat off of the bottom of the lake. Tige isn't lying when they say they have good rough water ride! The boat handled this disaster very, very good!
Sunday was ok, got the trifecta in early in the morning (boarding, skating and surfing)!
The wind kicked up and we decided not to take any chances and got the heck out of dodge (or Wyoming)....
And that's how I spent Father's Day weekend 2007...
</novel>
Father's Day Weekend '07 had it's ups and downs, that's for sure! Every year we go up to Glendo Reservoir in Wyoming for Father's Day. This year instead of taking Friday off, we decided we would just go on Saturday.
Friday afternoon my brother called and asked if he could pick up the boat for me since he was off. I get home right about the time he is pulling up with the boat. He starts to back the boat into my driveway (since I got a warning for parking it in the street on Wednesday) and the truck makes a loud squeal and then bam, no power steering. UGH! Truck blew the p/s pump! I told everyone that we would cancel the trip and fix the truck on saturday and just goto our regular lake on Sunday. My brother (Joe), and my buddy Clint then say "Well how about some good news?".
Okay... They open up the tailgate on the Avalanche and hand me a Tsunami pump and then say "Oh, we picked you up the Fly High V-drive sacks (550lbs each) and a pump so we need to go to the lake this weekend!". Oh man, if that wasn't motivation to fix the truck right then and there, I don't know what would be!After about 6 hours of misc. problems getting the p/s pump replaced, we finished up right about 1:00am. I get up at 6:45 am and load the truck and by the time everyone got over there we finally rolled out for our 180 mile drive at 9:00am. Woot! Get up to Glendo and setup our campsite in the open area with no trees/shade since that's all there was left, oh joy! By this time it's just a tad over 90 degrees outside and no clouds.
Let the fun begin! Got the boat out, filled up the sacks and the surfing was amazing! I was sooo happy with the new wave behind the boat!!!
After a few hours of playing around we saw some storm clouds move in so we decided to head for the boat ramp. We sat at the ramp for 1/2 hour just kind of waiting to see what the weather would do. Finally the clouds parted and moved the opposite direction and the sun was shining so we decided to go surf again. Bad idea!While Clint was surfing we saw a few strikes of lightning off in the distance so we decided to pack up and head for the ramp. By this time we were pretty far away from a good shoreline or the ramp. We start heading in and about 5 minutes in the wind kicks up and it starts to rain so I put in the windscreen (under the windshield). Then it happened....
The Storm
....here's one of the scariest moments of my life
The wind kicked up to 30, 40, 50 mph - don't even know! In a matter of moments the waves were 3'-4', it was raining and the wind was out of control! Waves began crashing over the nose of the boat even though I was driving 10 mph with taps at like 5 to get that nose up. The first big one scared everyone to death because the water was 3/4 of the way up the windscreen and flip flops were floating behind it. Clint pulled the windscreen to let the water in so the bilge could take care of it and the Amplifier wouldn't get wet. Then I have no idea how many more waves crashed over the starboard side and the nose but pretty soon my boat had water up to the seat cushions in it and more was coming in. We were close to the ramp now and I could see 3 other boats trying to get near it, there was no way you could put a boat on a trailer in these conditions and we were still taking on water. We saw another Tige doing circles to keep his nose up and water from getting in the boat. Unfortunately there was a small fishing boat close to shore that was getting close to going under. At this point I was trying to figure out a way to get the 3 girls off the boat (my wife, my 7 year old daughter and my brother's GF) but there wasn't a safe place to pull in to shore.
I got everyone to calm down and told Clint to break out the Tsunami pump to start getting water out. Holy crap does that thing do work!!!! We got the main area pumped down in just a few minutes while I drove to the sandy beach where the rest of our friends were staying. Somehow we made it to that area with the boat bogging down and taking on more and more water. As we got close I saw 2 of my buddies on the shore and they swam out to help the girls (who had lifejackets on) get in to shore safely through the waves. They all got up to shore and everyone was trying to figure out what I should do. I continued to circle slowly to minimize the amount of water being taken on and the storm started to die down.
While the storm was calming, Joe and Clint continued to pump the water out of the boat. They popped the engine hatch and the water was 3/4 of the way up the engine so they dropped the tsunami into the engine compartment to help out. After about 20 minutes the engine compartment was pumped out and the storm was calming down. A quick check of the fluids and systems revealed that everything was A-OK!
Once the storm water was calm again we had to wait for the docks to clear so what would you do? Surf of course (ballast free). Clint busted out the surfboard and we drove by the shoreline with everyone looking at us in astonishment as he rode by!
It took a few hours for everyone to calm down after what happened but we all realized that if we had been in our old boat, we would have been wearing orange life vests and trying to figure out how to get our boat off of the bottom of the lake. Tige isn't lying when they say they have good rough water ride! The boat handled this disaster very, very good!
Sunday was ok, got the trifecta in early in the morning (boarding, skating and surfing)!
The wind kicked up and we decided not to take any chances and got the heck out of dodge (or Wyoming)....And that's how I spent Father's Day weekend 2007...
</novel>
Comment