Ryan and Debi Cragun’s Blog

We made it back to Tampa Tuesday, the 19th, but not without a little trouble.  We were scheduled to fly back from Utah on Tuesday, but we were supposed to arrive in Tampa Tuesday night around 10pm, which was exactly when Fay was supposed to hit Tampa (at least, that was the projection Monday afternoon). So, we called the airline (Northwest; very helpful by the way) and rescheduled to fly in to Jacksonville a bit earlier on the 19th (around 5pm) and then grabbed a rental car and drove down to Tampa (via I-10 and I-75). We skirted the storm entirely.  If you’ve been following Fay, you’re aware that the course of the storm has changed dozens of times.  When we changed our flights, Tampa was in the direct path of the storm.  Since then, Fay basically hit every other inch of the state, but skirted Tampa.  Tampa’s 100+ year avoidance of a direct hurricane hit continues!

Just for fun I used Google Maps to put together a rough outline of the traveling we did during the 2 1/2 weeks we were gone.  The total mileage (roughly, as we flew large chunks of this), is about 8,655 miles.  You can see a map of where we went here.

The last few days we were in Utah we spent some time with my parents in Morgan and visited with my two hiking buddies and their families.  I picked up some additional pictures from various people.  Here are some more photos from Lake Powell:

This first one is of my brother Danny, a highly successful lawyer in Northern Utah.  His sister-in-law put this costume together for him, and apparently he wears it regularly:

Here’s Danny’s son, Connor, “riding the bull” (a 50 gallon barrel half full of water my father rigged up).  Connor’s pretty fearless when it comes to the water:

Here are Pyper (one of Danny’s girls) and Sydney (one of my brother Mike’s daughters) playing on shore.  One of their favorite games was to throw mud at each other.

The very first day, Debi got on the houseboat and sat down next to Pyper and Sydney at the kitchen table.  We hadn’t been to Utah in almost 2 1/2 years and they didn’t remember us.  So, Pyper introduced herself to Debi, “Hi.  I don’t know you.  I’m Pyper.”  Sydney followed that up with, “And I’m Sydney.”  Debi was definitely pleased to make their acquaintance.

Here are two of my nephews, Carter and Brock:

Here’s a photo of a game we played in remembrance of my Uncle Stan.  He used to lay the Cragun kids (all 9 of us) down in a row.  The game was: he got to tickle us however he wanted and the last person to move won.  We tried it with the grandkids (Danny, Mike, and I), but we weren’t nearly as successful as Stan: almost everyone was able to withstand the tickle torture (and my licking their bellies):

Here are Danny and Don ripping it up with Guitar Hero as the grandkids look on:

Here are almost all of the grandkids on the inflatable trampoline behind the houseboat:

Next are a couple photos of our “science experiment” Ant Wars.  As you can see, the kids were very interested:

This next one is Debi going over rocks with some of the grandkids:

Another event I failed to recount in my earlier trip report was the game we played one evening - sardines.  If you’ve never played sardines, you really must - we used to play it all the time when I was growing up.  One person goes off and hides and the others have to find him/her.  But instead of telling everyone once you’ve found the person hiding, you hide with that person until everyone has found him/her.  Jake was the first to hide and he hid up on the top of the boat in a storage compartment.  As I was the last to find him (I was making sure everyone was playing), I hid next.  I knew of a bunch of groovy places to hide, but one hit me while I was walking into the main room - right behind the couch.  I figured people would walk right past my spot and not notice it for a while.  I was right, but eventually my niece, Amanda, decided for some reason to look behind the couch (mind you, it was pressed up against the wall and I was laying on my side in about 7 or 8 inches of space.  Once she found me, she just sat on the couch.  Others started to realize what was going on, but only one other person, my nephew Brock, decided he would hide WITH me.  He dropped behind the couch right onto me and layed on top of me until everyone figured it out.  But he didn’t just lay there, he chatted with me (better stated: he talked right into my ear while I tried to breath).  He went on and on about how uncomfortable I must be down there and how he was making it more uncomfortable by laying on me, “I bet you’re really uncomfortable down here.  This is a tiny place to hide in.  I bet me laying on you is making you more uncomfortable, huh?”  He thought it was pretty funny.  Thinking back on it, it was very funny, even though I was incredibly uncomfortable at the time.

The last person to hide, Carson, hid in the storage compartment underneath the boat.  Almost everyone actually got down inside the compartment to hide with him.  Here are Debi and I as the first people start to come back out.

This is a photo of the crater-like bowl my brother Mark hiked everyone up to:

Here’s a shot of my brother-in-law, Don, and sister, Tammy, working their way down the ravine to the cliff we jumped off:

And here’s a shot of a bunch of people trying to work their way down the ravine:

Here’s my sister-in-law, Kristen, cheering after her record breaking kayak run in the obstacle course.  I hope to one day be half as physically fit as she is:

Here’s my mom finishing the race:

The next two shots are of a niece and nephew kneeboarding.  The photos wouldn’t be all that amazing except they are of kids about 5 and 6 years old.  They are actually small enough that they can kneel on the kneeboard while it isn’t moving and not sink.  Here’s Pyper giving it a whirl:

And here’s Carter:

The next day I took Carter out and he was able to do it almost entirely by himself.  He was pretty proud of his kneeboarding skills.

Someone grabbed their camera to get a few shots of us tackling the tent.  As you can see, there are about five people on the tent.  That pole I’m trying to detach the tent from was actually a very stout piece of electrical conduit.  The wind bent it to about a 30 degree angle:

Here are Don and Debi during the marshmallow olympics.  Debi had just called it quits, but we got a good shot of them before they ate their marshmallows:

Debi told me later that had the marshmallows been Kraft Stay-Puffed, she probably would have tried harder.  I sense a rematch in the making.

This last one of Lake Powell is of Karlie putting the finishing touches on the girls teams’ marshmallow tower.  With a little coaching from my father, they slaughtered the boys on this one:

I know this is a pretty long post, but I have a few more photos.  These are from the hike.  Mark usually takes most of the photos as he has a smaller camera he can slide in and out of his pocket easily.  Mine is a behemoth which I usually just take out on the summit.  Here are Tom and I at the trailhead getting ready to embark:

Here we are on a saddle about an hour and a half in.  A trail runner paused just long enough to snap this for us before flying up the mountain:

Here’s a really good shot of Mark and Tom.  I stayed a bit behind them to snap this one:

Here’s a good one of Tom and I.  I like it because it gives a sense of the elevation.  We were probably 2/3rds the way up the mountain at this point, but you can see we’re above a lot of the surrounding peaks and there is only sky:

This is a great shot of Mark looking down over one of the beautiful valleys and mountain lakes:

Here’s a shot of Tom as we traversed some of the false peaks on the way to the summit.  Most of these highpoints have a number of false peaks that give you hope only to crush it once you reach the false summit and realize there is a peak just beyond it that is the actual peak:

Here we are on the summit, taking a break and trying to keep away from the gazillions of flies that were up there:

Final picture… Here’s Tom marching fearlessly through a meadow (we broke off the path for a bit) right at a herd of mountain goats (you can barely see them in the background).  We hiked pretty close to them on the way down:

The above photos are courtesy of Jeanne Cragun, Tamera Rupe, and Mark Woolley.  If anyone wants larger resolution shots, just let me know.

Our trip to Southern Utah was pretty short, just 3 days.  My in-laws wanted to see the Shakespearean festival (though Cyrano de Bergerac is not by Shakespeare), Zion National Park, and Les Miserables.  I suggested Mountain Meadows and one other stop: Colorado City.  For those not familiar with Colorado City, Arizona, it’s a town literally on the border between Utah and Arizona (strategically placed to avoid authorities when required).  It’s also the base of operations for The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the increasingly well-known polygamist group, some of the members of which were the residents of the ranch in El Dorado Texas that was raided in April.  Debi and I recently wrote book chapters on the FLDS (the bookshould be coming out in the next 6 months or so), and I’ve heard lots of stories about the FLDS, so I figured stopping by Colorado City might be fun.  We originally planned to stop there after Zion National Park, but we spent more time in the park than originally planned, so we moved it to Wednesday and stopped there on our way home.

We didn’t really know what we wanted to see or what we could see in Colorado City, but we figured we’d drive around and see whatever we could and then hopefully stop for lunch somewhere.  Often Colorado City is referred to as Colorado City/Hilldale, as the town is kind of split right on the border - Colorado City is in Arizona and Hilldale is in Utah.  Since we were driving south from Utah, we passed through Hilldale first. Hilldale is, well, pretty much non-existent.  The majority of the city is in Arizona.  Only the very northern edge of the settlement is in Utah.  So, it really is more accurate to say Colorado City.

Without a particular plan of attack, we simply turned down a street and started driving around randomly.  As luck would have it, the best part of our trip happened at the very first house on the very first street we drove down.  I had heard stories that people in Colorado City are very distrustful of outsiders and that they will stop and stare at you if you drive into town.  I wasn’t sure if that was true, but it really is.  As we turned down the first street, we saw a woman dressed in the standard FLDS dress with her kids working on the lawn outside.  All of the kids stopped what they were doing and stared at us as we drove by.  We tried to get a picture that first time, but didn’t get a good one and felt pretty awkward doing so anyway.  So, we snuck up on them later and snapped this shot:

You can see the mother to the right, hoeing away.  The kids are all dressed in the standard outfits: girls in full-length dresses, boys in jeans and long sleeve shirts.  As we passed them this time, we waved.  Only the youngest kids waved back while all the others simply stared.  I’m not surprised by their response, but I am fascinated: the FLDS are definitely secretive and wary of outsiders.  I would kind of feel bad for my voyeurism, but I really am interested in them from a sociological perspective, so I can kind of justify snapping these photos.

We drove around the town for another 30 to 45 minutes, just seeing what we could see.  I don’t think anyone has written an article on this yet, but someone should definitely write an article on the architecture/urban planning of a secretive polygamist sect.  I was absolutely fascinated by what we saw.  If someone is interested in writing this paper, maybe the following will give you a good start (and then we can collaborate on an actual article).  I’ll begin with the most common house type we saw, something like the house in this picture:

It’s a very large home, which makes sense considering the sizes of families among the FLDS.  But there are several things that are noteworthy about these homes.  First, unlike homes for monogamous couples, they aren’t necessarily built for the aesthetic value but to maximize space.  This is particularly apparent in some of the other homes we photographed (see below), but also apparent in the above home - the more rooms the better.  Also, while you can’t see it very well in this low-resolution photo, the exterior of the house isn’t finished stucco but rather wooden particle board painted gray, which is pretty common among the homes we saw.  Second, notice the additions: the small building to the left is an addition to this home and there is a trailer to the right.  Neither of the two additions fit, aesthetically, with the larger home, reinforcing the idea that construction in the FLDS community is more about space than about architectural appeal.  I have to wonder if that is unique in residential communities.

This next photo does a better job illustrating the pragmatism of the FLDS.  Similar to the above home, but even more simplistic and less stylistic, this home is basically an enormous box with virtualy no adornments.  Also like the above home, the exterior is wooden particle board, this time painted brown, with no attempt at adding a finished exterior, like stucco or brick.  This is about the most utilitarian home you can get: it’s a massive box with tons of space for wives and kids.

Though slightly less common than traditional foundation homes, a fairly common sight was trailer homes like the one in the photo below.  There are hundreds of these homes scattered throughout Colorado City.  Again, this is probably a simple matter of utilitarianism: If you run out of space for your wives and kids, you buy a trailer and set it up in a field near your home.

The three homes above also illustrate the lack of interest in maintaining one’s yard, which was also very common in Colorado City.  Of the several hundred homes we saw, very few had any significant landscaping.  This is reaffirmed when you visit the town’s cemetery (which doubles as a monument to Prophet Leroy S. Johnson):

While we were in the cemetery there were sprinklers on and it was apparent some minor attempts at landscaping the cemetery had taken place.  But it remained mostly sandy soil and weeds.  There was virtually no grass and no clear lines demarcating sand from grass or walking areas from viewing areas.  I have a rather cynical theory to explain this that goes along with my assertions of pragmatism: The community wants to give the veneer of been clean, tidy, and well-kept, but the time required in simply handling the hundreds of kids is too much.  Additionally, while there are weak attempts at landscaping, the real interests of the community lie in maintaining their lifestyle and earning money, neither of which require nice landscaping.  Finally, maintaining a nice lawn in a desert area like Colorado City is probably both prohibitively expensive and time consuming.  It would require making that a priority, which is clearly not of interest in the community.  As a result, there is virtually no landscaping of note in the community.

Another point of architectural interest is the preponderance of abandoned homes like this one:

We probably saw one to two dozen homes just like this - framed up, but missing windows and inhabitants.  I don’t know what the explanation is for these homes, so I’m just going to propose a couple of possibilities.  First, the trust that holds the communal funds for the FLDS is now in receivership by the State of Arizona.  With limited access to the hundreds of millions in the fund, construction may have ceased on new projects.  Another explanation may be the reign of Warren Jeffs.  Once he took control of the religion he kicked out a number of men who were seen as threats.  These homes may stand as tributes to and reminders of the importance of obedience to the prophet.  I really am just guessing here, so if anyone reading this has a better explanation, I’d love to hear it.

Another element of the architecture of the community that is of interest is the preponderance of large privacy walls.  Of course you see privacy fences in cities and towns all over, but rarely do you see walls as imposing as this:

Walls like this were pretty common, though they weren’t all as tall as this one.  The walls are also pragmatic - to keep people like me from seeing what is going on behind them.

Despite having everything in common (supposedly), there are also clear class differences in the community, which are also apparent in the architecture.  Compare the home in the photo below to the homes shown earlier:

I’m guessing the quality of the homes reflects the religious hierarchy as well.

Another strange architectural feature is the lack of signage on most buildings.  By far the largest building in town, this massive white building, had no sign indicating its function.  From its architecture I’m inclined to believe this is the main church for the FLDS in the community:

The lack of signage is pretty common.  Again, I’m guessing this is a privacy thing: If you don’t know what the functions of buildings are, it’s hard to find people doing things in those buildings.  The lack of signage was also apparent on the restaurant/cafe where we ate lunch (which was the second most interesting thing we saw) - Vermillion Restaurant:

The sign is under the awning and not facing the street but between this building and another.  You really have to look for it to find it.

I knew they had a restaurant or two in town and was hoping to eat in town just to get a little bit of the experience.  We found this cafe near the center of town.  On the door was a sign that said, “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”  Next to that sign was a sign that said, “Absolutely no cameras or video equipment permitted inside.”  As I was really interested in seeing how things functioned in the community, I didn’t take my camera in, though I would have loved to have gotten a photo of the inside of the cafe.  Inside was basically one large room with a counter at one end and restrooms at the other.  There were no booths, just very long tables with chairs.  It was completely open with no pillars, so you could see everyone inside.  You wrote your order on a slip of paper at the counter, they rang you up, then delivered it to your table.  The food selection was pretty interesting as much of it was simply frozen prepared food that they would heat up and deliver (e.g., mozzarella sticks, pizza sticks, chicken sticks, fish sticks, etc.).  We placed our orders and headed to a table to wait for them.

The owners of the restaurant are clearly FLDS - the woman who took our order was wearing the traditional dress and had the hairstyle that is common among the FLDS.  There were a couple of other tables occupied.  One was occupied by several men, all of whom were wearing long-sleeve shirts, jeans, and hats.  They all had cell phones and frequently made calls.  The other table was occupied by a mother with four kids, all girls and all under the age of about 8.  We were the only non-FLDS in the cafe.  It was fascinating to see the young girls respond to our presence.  There was one girl, probably around 4 or 5, who clearly recognized us as outsiders.  We were just as novel to her as she was to us.  She couldn’t stop staring at us.  She and her older sister kept running around our table to get a better look at us.  We smiled and waved and said hello, but she was reticent to respond.  We tried to be as cordial as possible, but the adults, who did glance at us furtively, didn’t really respond at all.

I did ask the person who took our order one thing about the community: I asked her if there was a monument to the 1953 Short Creek Raid.  The community used to be called Short Creek, but changed its name after it was raided by the State of Arizona in 1953 (very similar to the raid on the ranch in Texas).  If you read the entry on Wikipedia you’ll see that the polygamists in the town had forewarning about the raid and gathered in the local school to sing patriotic songs while the kids played around the flagpole outside.  I thought there would be a monument to the raid, as it was a defining moment in the community.  So, I asked her where it was.  She told us, but it was a good thing I asked or we never would have found it.  If it is a monument to the earlier raid, it is pretty neglected at this point.  Here’s a photo of the school:

The yard, like the rest of the community, is unkempt, but now it is also littered with trash and junk.  There is a sign indicating it is a historic location, but whoever is in charge of keeping it up is literally letting it die:

Debi and I got a picture at the famed flagpole, which was about the only area that seemed to be slighty well kept.  The rest of the place was really going down hill.

This was our last stop in the community before we headed back to Salt Lake City.  On our way home I asked my in-laws what there favorite part of the trip was.  Rosemary liked Les Miserables.  Gary, who didn’t understand initially why were going to visit a town on the border, said his favorite part was Colorado City.  I have to admit it was probably my favorite part, too.  It’s not every day that you get to visit a town in the heart of America that is inhabited by a people with a culture so foreign to regular Americans that you literally feel like are in a foreign country and are experiencing culture shock.  It was a fascinating chance to peek inside a reclusive, secretive sect and get a glimpse of the lifestyle that makes them so unique.

On the second day of our trip to Southern Utah we got up fairly early and headed out from St. George to Zion National Park, which is about 45 minutes away.  Debi’s parents had been to the park about 35 years earlier, but neither Debi or I had ever been.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but was very impressed in the end.

The park has a shuttle system that moves people through the park and even into Springdale, the city just outside the park.  There are a bunch of stops and you can do a variety of things from each stop, including sightseeing, snacking, and hiking.  The shuttles cut down on congestion and are very convenient, though they were pretty busy.  We left the main parking area on our first shuttle and stopped at the Human History Museum.  The Human History Museum is a pretty small museum with a bit of information on the history of Zion as regards humans.  It talks briefly about Native Americans then goes into the history of European settlers, most of whom were Mormons.  There is also a 20 minute video that highlights many of the main features of the museum and recaps some of what the museum says.  From the Human History Museum we took theshuttle to the Court of Patriarchs.  Here’s a map showing the major stops and the attractions in the park:

More information and a more detailed map are available here.

Here’s a shot of Debi at the Court of the Patriarchs:

It’s called the Court of the Patriarchs because the three mountains you see are named after three Biblical patriarchs: from left - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  It’s a very short hike up to this vista point.

From the Court of the Patriarchs we took the shuttle up to Weeping Rock, which is a bit longer of a hike, but not bad at all.  Weeping Rock is a cool sandstone cliff that sits atop shale.  Water that seeps down into the sandstone eventually hits the shale layer, which it can’t penetrate, then runs laterally until it drops out the side of the cliff.  This particular cliff has a nearly constant shower of water dropping out of the cliff.  The guide on the bus said the water coming out of the cliff entered the top of the plateau between 800 and 1,200 years earlier.  That’s just a couple hundred years after the founding of Islam and hundreds of years before Columbus sailed to the Americas.  Pretty fascinating stuff.

Here are Debi and her parents at Weeping Rock:

Here’s a shot of the area where all the water drips down from the cliff:

And here’s a panoramic shot I took from Weeping Rock (it’s much better in its full resolution, but it’s also an enormous file; email me if you want to see it):

From Weeping Rock we took the shuttle up to Big Bend, which wasn’t a particularly popular stop for people, but it does have a great view of The Great White Throne, which is the white peak you see in this picture through the red and brown cliffs:

It was also at this point that another tourist said, “It’s hard to believe a little river like the Virgin River could carve all these cliffs.”  I’m not sure if he was just amazed or if he was suggesting a supernatural force was involved, but my response was, “Well, it’s also hard for us to imagine just how long millions of years are.  It took about 10 million years for that river to cut through all of these cliffs.  If we understood time frames that large, it wouldn’t be a problem to believe a little river like the Virgin River could do this.”  I’m not sure if he got the point, but he nodded.  I then offered to take a picture of him and his wife in about the same place as where Debi and I got this photo:

From Big Bend we took the shuttle to its final stop, The Temple of Sinawava.  The Temple is a large, circular area with some rocks in the middle, one of which is named the altar and one is the pulpit.  I couldn’t get a very good picture of those, but they were pretty cool.  The Temple of Sinawava is also the starting location of the River Walk, which is about a 2 mile round trip walk along the Virgin River until the canyon narrows to the point that they call it The Narrows and you have to basically walk in the river.  Debi and I double-timed it to The Narrows and snapped a few photos, then double-timed it back to catch her parents, who were walking the trail more leisurely.  It’s actualy a pretty leisurely trail and even wheelchair accessible.  It also passes a swamp, which is amazing to see in the middle of Southern Utah’s desert.  Here I am at the end of the River Walk trail and the beginning of the Narrows:

Here is Debi with her parents along the River Walk trail:

It was on our way down the River Walk that it really started to hit me what the demographics were of the park visitors.  Most of the people were middle class, of course, but more shockingly were the ratios of Europeans and Asians to Americans.  You could tell country of origin based on over-hearing languages.  I would guess there were 2 Europeans at the park for every 1 American (mostly French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese).  The ratio of Asians to Americans was about 1 to 1.  If you need any more indicators of how weak our economy and dollar are right now, just go visit Zion.  The Euro is doing so well that Europeans now outnumber us in our national parks (either that or Americans are just too lazy and indifferent to visit a park that requires walking around; I’m hoping it’s the money issue).

From The Temple of Sinawava we took the shuttle to Zion Lodge, where we stopped for lunch.  There are two restaurants there, a cafe where you order, pick up your food, and then carry it to your table and a sit down restaurant.  The cafe was swamped with people, so I suggested the other restaurant.  To our surprise, it was nearly empty.  We got a table and our food came out quickly.  It was also very good food and good service.  It was Gary’s favorite part of the park (he’s not a big fan of hiking).

Replenished, we took the shuttle back down to the parking area, hopped in the car, then drove the Mt. Carmel Road through the tunnels carved through the surrounding mountains.  I think I had seen pictures of these tunnels before, but I didn’t realize they were part of Zion National Park.  They were carved in the 1930s and are  barely big enough for an RV or tour bus to pass through right in the middle - meaning they can only allow vehicles in one direction at a time.  Here’s a shot of the entrance to the larger tunnel:

And here’s a shot of the switchbacks on our GPS as we were headed up to the tunnel (they almost double over each other):

One of the coolest features of the main tunnel is that they carved windows into it that allow you to look into the canyon.  It was almost impossible to get a good shot of the windows, but here’s one Debi snapped as I drove through:

The tunnels have basically been left in their original state, which means there are no lights inside.  You have to turn on your lights to see.  Here’s a shot of the exit of the tunnel:

Once you get through the tunnels you are driving on the tops of the plateaus that make up Zion National Park and the canyon below.  The tops of the plateaus are geologically fascinating, with sandstone lines running in all sorts of directions.  It continues for miles.  The sandstone is hundreds of millions of years old and has been raised up over millions of years to a height of nearly 10,000 feet above sea level.  Geology is awesome.  We drove a bit on the plateau, then turned around and headed back through the tunnels then back to St. George.

We got back around 4:00 and most everyone crashed for a couple hours before we headed to the outdoor theatre called Tuacahn, which is about 5 miles outside St. George.  We saw Les Miserables.  The performance was generally pretty good.  The orchestra, unfortunately, was very small, which made it sound tinny and lacking in depth.  But the actors gave pretty good performances and the singing was, for the most part, very good.  Valjean, Javier, and Eponine were all really good.  The play started at 8:30 and ran until midnight, which was pretty late for us, but it was definitely worth it.

What used to be my favorite Lake Powell activity, early morning water skiing, had lost some of its appeal over the years - I rarely get to water ski, I’m out of shape, and most of my siblings are no longer interested in skiing.  Only my brother Mark and sister-in-law Kristen were interested.  So we got up early this morning and went water skiing.  They were nice enough to give me the first ski, which meant I got the good water.  I amazed myself by getting up on my first try - I always used to, but it has probably been almost 5 years since I slalomed.  It was fun, but I couldn’t ski nearly as long as I used to - I’m really out of shape.

After skiing I played my brother Danny in chess (he beat me twice and we drew once; I’ve lost my edge in that too).  We played some more Guitar Hero then my Dad set up another activity for everyone.  He brought a bunch of 50 gallon barrels and PVC pipe that he anchored off the end of the house boat.  It was an obstacle course for the kayak we always bring to Powell.  As a ridiculously competitive family, we timed everyone to see who could do it fastest.  I did end up winning, but considering all the variables, it was probably more of a three way tie between me, my brother Mark, and my sister-in-law, Kristen.  Even so, most of the fun came from watching people try to maneuver the kayak around the obstacles.

After lunch I got into a lengthy discussion, the second of the trip, on Mormon growth.  The earlier discussion was about pre-marital sex among Mormons (about 50% of Mormons have pre-marital sex compared to 80% of the population generally).  I don’t think my family has quite realized that these are actually topics I study.  With my laptop handy, I started pulling out articles to illustrate my points.  I think they might be getting the idea of what I study now, but maybe not.

That carried us through the afternoon.  In the early evening, Debi and I were getting ready to do a little scuba diving when a wicked windstorm blew in.  It’s probably the windiest storm I’ve seen at Lake Powell.  Luckily our boat was well anchored, though we fiddled with those a bit more as well.  The bigger concern was all the loose stuff on the exterior of the boat.  We got all of that situated then Debi and I looked up at our jury-rigged tent to see that it was barely surviving.  It was mostly blown down, the wind was whipping it everywhere, but the poles we had driving into the ground were preventing it from flying away.  We initially thought that maybe we could save it, so I had some of the nephews help us fill it with rocks, but the wind picked up even more, and the tent started to lift off, even with the rocks inside.  At that point I realized we needed to take it down, but that was easier said than done.  I had to untie the straps form the poles and the wind was getting inside the door, lifting it up.  I got most of the straps off when the tent decided it was ready for liftoff.  Debi was holding on to it the best she could, but she doesn’t weight nearly enough to weigh it down.  A couple nephews jumped on, too, and I started screaming for them to tackle it.  But with all of them on it, it was still getting away.  Finally, my sister-in-law, Kristen, saw that we were struggling.  She sprinted out of the houseboat and tackled the tent.  She would have made a great linebacker.  With her help we were able to finally wrangle it to the ground and pull it inside.  Our cozy tent was no longer available, but at least we didn’t lose it to the storm gods.

With the tent in, I checked the rest of our stuff on the beach to make sure it was all battened down.  We had a cooler and plastic bin on the shore by some bushes that looked like they might need some anchoring.  I tipped the plastic bin on to its side and threw a couple of rocks inside it when I heard a loud hiss.  My first thought was that it was a can of pop that I had broken.  So I ducked down to look inside the bin.  As I drew close, I realized my error, luckily in time.  Just outside the bin, blended into the rock and sand, was a rattlesnake, reared up and ready to strike.  I probably got within two feet of it before I realized what was making the sound.  I jumped back and swore.  It was perfectly camouflaged - matching the Lake Powell sandstone perfectly.  A few people saw me jump back (and probably heard me freaking out) and asked what it was.  I screamed over the wind that it was a rattlesnake.  My older brother, Mike, came out with a shovel and took care of it (he chopped it up - it struck at him twice in the process - and buried it).  If it wasn’t 15 feet from the front of the houseboat we probably would have left it where it was, but the kids played there everyday.   Leaving it was probably not a good idea.  Sorry snake.

The wind did eventually start to dye down.  My Mom put me in charge of an activity for the evening, wanting a repeat of the male synchronized swimming performed several years earlier.  Not wanting to get back in the water, my brother-in-law, Don, and I came up with an alternative.  The women had their own activity, a poem written by my sister, Tammy, and performed by all of the adult women.  Here’s the poem:

To Think That We Came from the Very Same Old (In Dr. Seuss form):

To think that we came
From the very same mold
This story is so crazy
It’s got to be told

So let us begin
With the head of the clan,
Until we’ve told you a story
About the Cragunrump men.

In the beginning
Where the wuffnorf tree grew
There was a fine little boat
That wasn’t so new.

The news that we got
One day in July,
Of our house boat sinking
It of course, made us cry.

But to the rescue
Super dad saved the day,
So we still have a boat
We can come to and play.

To begin our journey
We have to make a stop,
Five carwashes, two wal-marts
And fill up with carba-drink pop.

We made good time
Only sixteen hours it took,
Nine kids and 35 hamburgers
We got a lot of funny looks.

So who packed all this stuff
That we have to unload,
It’s obvious to us
We’re not from the same mold.

The kitchen sink
And a drawer full of socks,
Three extra propellers
In case we hit rocks.

And to our dismay
Should then appear,
Hey dad, pooper-stanker’s clogged
Back in the rear.

So out came the wrench
And the rink-rinker-fink,
He’s our hero for sure
The toilet no longer stinks.

I’ll teach the kid-cloppers
To fish cause it’s fun,
I’ll show you just how
And we’ll catch ninety-one.

We’re watching, we’re watching
Show us how it is done,
But tell us the reason
That hooks in your thumb.

(All say together)
And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

Wow what a day
What a day at the lake,
The water is smooth
And one boy is awake.

After eating his hummus
And greasing dread locks,
Ryan was ready to ski
Wow, that Cragulump rocks.

He’s debating the driver
That’s pulling him around,
He’s the wisest of all
That could ever be found.

If you use his GPS
You’ll see which way to go,
He’s the best ski driver of all
He’s safe, patient and slow.

If you want to know more
About our wisedight Ry,
He’s got the coolest blog
You should give it a try.

Let me talk about food
And I’ll fix you a treat,
I’m a vegetarian so
in other words, I won’t eat.

Cucumbers and hummus
Meat I no longer crave,
To be stuck with Cragunites
I am definitely brave.

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

Oh the wonderful things
Our brother Troy can be,
A motorcycle maniac
Riding up in a tree.

He can go to the widow maker
He can go vroom, vroom
He can even beat his brother
If you give him a little room.

He can go to Olive Garden
With his kids dibble and dop,
He can tell the best stories
You can’t get him to stop.

He can scare you, he can dare you,
That he can do it best of all,
Unless you can scare him under the tramp
Then for sure he’ll take a fall.

He can read in bed
He can read in a car,
He will make you drive
If you’re going very far.

If he reads with his eyes shut
He’s likely to find,
That the place where he’s going
Is far far behind.

Oh the wonderful things
Our brother Troy can do,
But his phone mailbox is full
And he doesn’t have a clue.

But we like the music
Cause it goes boom, boom,
So we wiggle and we jiggle
Hope he calls us back soon.

Oh the wonderful things
Our brother Troy can do.
Vroom, vroom
Dibble, dipple dop
He even likes to drink
Dads carba-drink pop.

Eeek, eek
You who
Tick tick tock
It’s time to get up
Just look at your clock

Boom boom
Guzzle, guzzle,
Klopp, klopp, klopp
Fix the cycles
Cause the fun won’t stop.

And to think that we came
from the very same mold.

Left foot left foot
Right foot, right
Don’s got his shoes on
It’s just not right.

Left foot, left foot,
Left foot, right
He loves his lotion
Puts it on every night.

Left foot, right foot,
Feet feet feet
How many, many,
feet he’ll meet.

He sees feet come
And he sees feet go
Some are fast
And some are slow.

Oh me oh my
Oh me oh my
What a lot
Of funny feet go by.

Don’s here all week
Now that’s something new,
He’ll love every minute
Just don’t take his shoes.

Tickle my arm
And my sexy cheeks,
Just keep me happy
This whole week.

Don’s in the kitchen
Organizing the closet,
you can only get in there
If you make a beso deposit.

(baby talk)
You come here, give me kisses
I’m going to get you, give me kisses.

Don’s so sweet
He can even do this,
He can kiss his kids
With a butterfly kiss.

He can cook anything
He’s the best cook around,
No one more willing
Will ever be found.

If you want to laugh
Just keep Don real near,
He’ll keep you rolling
You have nothing to fear.

Bare feet, dirty feet
Sandy feet, flirty feet
Play canasta without a doubt
Come on Tammy, “Let’s go make out.”

In the houseboat
And on the beach
Oh how many bare feet
Don will meet.

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

This was no time for play
This was no time for fun
This was no time for games
There was work to be done.

So no time to waste you will not
Sit, sit, sit, sit
Laziness he does not like it
Not one little bit.

Mark’s the scout leader
They’ve got him in sight,
They follow him around
They must think he’s quite bright.

Little do they know
He’s a real hum-dinger
Our kids really hate when
He brings out Mr. Bone finger.

If you’re kids are being brats
Mark knows just what to do,
He’ll talk sense into them
They’ll apologize to you.

So kids I’ve got tricks
I will show them to you,
You’re parents won’t mind
At all if I do.

He loves the tickle torture
Of that there’s no doubt,
He should not be allowed to do it
When the parents are out.

He’s our number one swimmer
The best in synchronize
Has the best sense of humor
And a great time with the guys.

He can be so cool
And that is not all,
If you’re hiking with Mark
You will for sure have a ball.

He’ll look at you and say
The buddy system is a must,
If they’ve gone off with Mark
It is him you can trust.

To the cave we will go
And we will pick up trash,
Those five mile hikes
Will be done in a flash.

He will teach them a lot
With no looking back,
We’ve watched and we’ve watched
And we’ve kept careful track.

He rocks with the kids
Of that there’s no lie,
We’re glad that you’re healthy
And that you didn’t die.

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

We like our boat
It is made for twenty-three,
Our mike sits up
In front you see.

We like our mike
And this is why,
He does all the driving
When the waves get high.

Say,
Look at her toes
One, two, three and four,
Nails that are painted
With colors galore.

I can’t stop staring
It’s making me mad,
Put your shoes on like Don
And you’ll make me so glad.

The captain of the boat
“What the crap”
Not again
I’ve broken my back.

Head shoulders
Knees and toes
Knees and toes
Knees and toes.

Head shoulders
Knees and toes
I’ve broken
all of those.

Wait a minute
Singing like I was happy,
You know I’m onery
Cause manning the boat is just crappy.

When he hangs a picture
Why does Mike get so mad?
We do not know
Let’s go ask dad.

What makes him smile
Kris has the key,
So if they disappear,
Just let them be.

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

Hey look at me
Can you guess who I am,
You are so right
It’s me Dan I am.

That Dan I am
That Dan I am
He bought that boat
That Dan I am.

All the tires popped
And the tide was low
But we made it home
Warlord still in tow.

Would you could you
On his boat?
No you could not
It could barely float.

So do you like
The Warlord Dan?
I will “buy it now”
I am Dan the Man.

Would you could you
Drive your new boat?
Would you could you
See if it floats?

I can, I can
If Mike shows me how,
Where is the stern
And where is the bow.

With pirate flag hoisted
The new ship I’ll man,
Because everyone knows
I am Dan, Dan I am.

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

It is, of course, an entertaining poem and a fairly accurate depiction of my father and brothers.  But my brother Danny thought he could top them.  He took twenty minutes to write a response while Don and I set up our activity.  Here’s Danny’s response:

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

We are women, hear us roar
Too many activities to ever bore.
No matter what your trip we will never be ignored.
With our feminine wiles we win every war

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

(Mom)
Let me introduce myself, my name is Grandma Jeanne/Geni/Genie,
You scarce can recognize me, I’ve gotten so very skinny.
I only ask one thing and I’ll only ask it twice.
You can do what you want which means you have to take my advice.
I love my family and all my happy times come,
Yes I said love love love or to quote Ryan, “I care about you.”

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

(Tammy)
Let me introduce myself, my name is Tamara Lynn Rupe,
I attract the misfits, my offerings range from counseling to cleaning your chicken coop.
I’m a stay-at-home mom that is almost never there,
Why do I attract the weirdos, I swear I do not care.
I love my family too – but yes they drive me nuts.
You try having six brothers, you’d want to kick their butts.

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

(Kristen)
Let me introduce myself, oh crap, I forgot my own name,
Tammy, Jeanne, help me – something, someth… oh, Kristen Bindrup just the same.
I like to chatteranga, Mike don’t get the wrong idea again,
We can do that later, yes your a stud – a real man among men.
I love Lake Powell and will fight you tooth and nail,
If you ever try and stop this trip, I’ll send you straight to… Jeanne,
Because she loves it too!

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

(Hillary)
Let me introduce myself, my name is Senora hillbilly,
I can pick on my husband, but if you do I’ll beat you frickin’ silly.
I’m married to Mark, which is like sleeping with a porcupine,
I may be defended well, but it’s uncomfortable and I’m not allowed to whine.
I clog like a machine, and have talents coming out my ears,
But put me anywhere near a cliff, I’ll bust right into tears.

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

Let me introduce myself, my name is Debi C.
I love my husband but he only “cares” about me.
I dabble in dancing and make a mean pad thai with rice.
I’m academically awesome, I’ll gladly explain a gene splice.
I have had a good time, in my family I have lots of pride.
I put on this sweet demure exterior, but I’m a “wild women” inside!

And to think that we came
From the very same mold.

We are the Cragun women, loved but completely misunderstood,
We are never nagging, it’s not nagging if its for your own good.
We are the Cragun women, martyrs to our very core,
Beautiful, sassy, nearly perfect – yours to love and adore.
We are the Cragun women and we only ask one thing,
Game night, poems, dancing, skits, movies, gourmet food, and maybe we should sing.

If Danny ever wanted to give up his highly lucrative career as a lawyer, he could probably support himself as a poet.

Don and I put together a tribute to the Olympics - the Marshmallow Olympics.  The first event was the marshmallow toss (tossing mini marshmallows into a partner’s mouth) - this was won by Karlie and Missy, defeating Jake and Corbin.  The second event was the marshmallow roll - this was a four-person relay rolling a full-size marshmallow back and forth about 2 meters - the men won this one with a clutch performance by my brother Mike.  The third event was a marshmallow stuffing contest with full-sized marshmallows.  You had to stuff as many in your mouth as you could but still eat them (not really a health-conscious event).  Don won this one handily, destroying Debi fairly easily by stuffing 13 in with room for at least a few more.  The final event was a marshmallow tower building contest - women against men.  Each got a bag of marshmallows and had to build the tallest tower they could.  The women won this one handily as well, even with the men trying to cheat.

We ended the evening in style, watching the new Stargate film.  It probably won’t surprise most people Debi and I love sci-fi and are huge fans of Stargate.  But, it turns out, so are Danny and Colleen.  They saw the new movie the day before we left in Costco and brought it.  The four of us were probably the only ones who understood what was going on, but it was still fun.  With the weather mellowed out, we were able to return to the top of the boat for bed.  Very few places offer night views of the stars better than Lake Powell.  The Milky Way was amazing!

Note: I forgot another important event.  The very first night one of the toilets got clogged.  Toilets on houseboats aren’t like normal toilets.  They are more like airline toilets, except they have a grinder that chews up the, um, chunks and paper to prevent clogs.  I was upstairs running the movie and didn’t realize that Danny drew the short straw and had to unclog it.  That meant taking it apart and cleaning everything out.  Imagine cleaning out a port-a-potty with a spoon and you’ll get the idea.  It was awful.  After his night of toilet terror, Danny penned “Mike’s Rules of the Pooper”:

1. If more than an inche, squeeze off and pinch.
2. If pushing more than a pound, go find higher ground.
3. If you decide to take a poo, push the down button is what you do.
4. If only  a relaxing pee is on your mind, there is no reason to grind.
5. Up is what you pull, if you’ve just wizzed in the hole.
6. A glass of grape juice every day will grease your inner way.
7. After your done with your squeeze, use your finger if you please.
8. Then use one square on your finger wash with soap so no smell linger.
9. Forget it! Don’t dookie until saturday!

Second Note: Hopefully I can get some pictures of some of these activities from my sibs.  If so, I’ll post them later.

I left off yesterday’s story with Debi and I sleeping on the roof of the houseboat under the canopy hoping the rain wouldn’t be a problem.  As you’ve probably guessed by me telling this story, the rain didn’t ease up.  It got worse, much worse.  We were situated to protect us from the rain from one direction, but it switched in the middle of the night.  The rain poured in from the other direction and even started leaking through the canopy.  Around midnight the water was seeping into our bags.  Around 3:00 am our bags were so wet Debi woke me up and said she’d had enough.  We crawled carefully downstairs and looked around for a place to sleep, but with the grand kids sleeping everywhere and their parents and grandparents (my siblings and parents) in their respective beds, we couldn’t find anything but the hallway, which is a bad idea with 20+ people getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathrooms.  We finally found a location: underneath the kitchen table.  But we didn’t want to wake anyone up, so we weaved our way in-between the chairs and tried to get as comfortable as possible.  It worked enough for us to sleep another couple of hours, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.  Here are a couple of photos illustrating why we went downstairs.

Tammy and Don are still asleep in this photo.  They were directly under the center of the canopy and built themselves a wall to protect themselves from the rain from one direction.  They still got a little wet, but not too bad.

We were on the two pads perpendicular to Tammy and Don.  This next picture shows just a little of the water we slept in:

We had sleeping bags, but this water accumulated under the sleeping bags.  Here’s a shot of Debi’s sleeping bag the morning after:

We were wet.  Here’s why we slept under the kitchen table:

The kids were laid out all over, leaving us this spot:

Debi slept under these two chairs.

One night under the table convinced us it was time to set up a tent on shore to make sure we didn’t have to do that again.  We set up a tent my parents brought, or at least we tried.  Some of the poles were missing, so, with the help of my Dad, we jury-rigged some poles and got a tent set up.  It worked, at least for a couple of nights (more foreshadowing…).

We also went hiking, snapping a few photos from the cliffs and hills above the houseboat.  Here’s Debi over-looking the canyon where we spent the week.  The houseboat is just to her left:

This was also our day to cook lunch.  We made hummus and cucumber sandwiches, which were generally well-received, though some of the kids didn’t dig them very much.

After lunch, we decided to have science hour with Ryan and Debi.  We tried hard to think of active science stuff that my nieces and nephews would find interesting.  We ultimately decided on studying ants.  I remembered my friend Tom mentioning that he and his brothers would go gather different ant species when they visited his relatives in rural Wyoming and put them into bowls together to watch them fight it out.  We figured we could teach them about ants - how much weight they can carry, how they developed trails to food, how they communicate, etc. - and then let them watch some ants tear each other apart when we were done.  We figured that would keep them entertained.  So, we took the kids up the beach and found three different ant species.  We dropped some food to let them build trails then scooped some up and took them back to the boat.  We put them together and watched to see what would happen.  As it turns out, not much.  There were some minor skirmishes, but it wasn’t the all out ant massacre we expected.  Then one of the kids suggested we drop a lizard in with the ants to see what would happen.  I’d like to say it was true scientific interest, but I think it was more an interest in carnage.  Two of the nephews caught a lizard and dropped it in.  Given the huge size differential, we were all thinking the lizard would stomp the ants to pieces.  Nope.  The ants teamed up and went to town on the lizard.  Debi couldn’t stand torturing the lizard, so we let everything out after about 30 seconds.  For our first foray into Ant Wars, it was definitely entertaining.  We also talked about different kinds of rocks; McKenzie and Carson, two of the grandkids, studied rocks this past year in school, so they did pretty well classifying them.

We swam a bit and for our evening entertainment played a few games.  I forget the first one, but I suggested one game - two truths and a lie.  A lot of people had very good truths and lies, and many were revealing.  Here are mine:

• I’ve seen someone shot.
• I love my wife.
• I’ve seen someone killed.

Any guesses as to which is the lie?

Here are Debi’s:

• I’ve never been fishing.
• I’m pregnant.
• I ran around a parking lot in high school without my shirt on.

Again, feel free to guess which is the lie.

After the two truths and a lie game, Danny, one of my older brothers, taught us a game he played in college.  Basically you bring people into a room one at a time and have them kneel under a blanket.  You then tell them, “You are in a desert and can remove one thing on you that will help you cool down.  We (those outside the blanket) know which item you need to remove that will help you cool down.  You need to remove that item and hand it to us.  When you hand it to us, we’ll let you know if it is the correct item.”  We played the game using the older nieces and nephews and most of them figured out pretty quickly that the correct item is the blanket (a few handed out their shirts first).  Then Danny put his 2 year-old under the blanket and told him to take something off (all he was wearing was his diaper).  Hilariously, Connor took off his diaper and smiled and laughed when he handed it out to Danny.  It was awesome!

After the night activities wrapped up, we headed out to our franken-tent.  We spent about 20 minutes wondering if someone was messing with us as we heard a lot of sounds that sounded like there was someone outside the tent.  Turns out it was just our franken-tent rubbing against itself.  Once we realized it, we finally got a good night of sleep.