September 30 - October 7, 2007: Lake Powell, Utah

One of many trip reports under the SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie Grow.
Email me at ajs@frii.com.
Last update: January 10, 2024
(Previous trip report: 2007_0219_Toiletry.htm)


Following is an "incomplete" trip report. This is text I posted to Wayne's Words on October 11, 2007, in 4 parts, and edited later.

Our recent houseboat trip out of Bullfrog Marina (at Lake Powell, Utah):


Later I added:

We had a nocturnal visitor, a ringtail cat, the first night of our trip... (Very rare, only ever saw one over ~30 years.)

The game started in the middle of the night when someone else sleeping on the roof informed me he heard noises and felt something run over his legs. I thought: That would have to be a ringtail cat, probably not a kangaroo rat, but I've never seen the former on the boat, only the latter once, years ago. Anyway, I tried to go back to sleep.

A minute later he told me that he'd gone downstairs and seen a bushy tail sticking out from under a hallway bunk... I had to drag myself out of the sleeping bag at that point.

We think the cat (which is really more like a skunk) must have gone down the "mousewalk" (narrow catwalk alongside the boat) and up the spiral stairs to the roof, since the back door was closed, then returned the same way. Not sure how it got into the cabin, but the helm window was open. So we left everything closed except the front door open a few inches, and never saw it again that morning or after.

Fortunately it did no visible damage. To my surprise it didn't touch various food that was sitting out, not even a broken potato chip on the floor, although it did nibble on a plum a little, and possible even moved it. Also it took a greasy paper towel out of the trash, over to near the couch.


And later I added:

We had gorgeous dark skies each evening, with the waning moon rising later and later toward morning. Spectacular conjunction with Venus early Sunday morning at the buoy. Milky Way right overhead each night.

We only got to see one Iridium flare, but despite the sometimes cloudy conditions, we saw the International Space Station pass by every night Tuesday through Saturday!

(Next trip report: 2008_0128-0204_DeathValley.htm)