Unscripted- - Spring Break Lake Powell -2018-

On Saturday, the fuse blew on the houseboat’s generator. No music. No phone charging. No blenders for the margaritas. At first, there was panic. Then, a strange relief. Someone found an acoustic guitar with three rusty strings. Someone else realized we had a gallon of off-brand tequila and a watermelon. We spent the afternoon carving the watermelon into a bucket, mixing it with tequila and lime, and passing it around with a ladle. We played a game called “Worst Life Advice” that involved no winners and a lot of laughter.

Lake Powell, straddling the border of Utah and Arizona, is already a surreal place. It is man-made, born from the damming of the Colorado River, yet it feels older than time. By 2018, the lake had been in a drought cycle for years, exposing white "bathtub rings" of stained rock. But Spring 2018 was different. The snowmelt from the Rockies had been vicious that year. The water was high. Canyons that had been dry for a decade suddenly became navigable channels. Unscripted- Spring Break Lake Powell -2018-

That first night was unscripted disaster. Tying the houseboat to the rock anchors in the dark resulted in one lost shoe, one near-drowning of a cooler, and a lot of shouting about rope knots that nobody actually knew how to tie. We ate cold tortellini salad with our fingers. The wind came up, howling through the sandstone, and the houseboat creaked like a haunted mansion. We slept on the roof under a sheet of stars so dense it felt like God was showing off. On Saturday, the fuse blew on the houseboat’s generator

This is the oral history of that specific, perfect storm of low water, high chaos, and total freedom. No blenders for the margaritas