Houseboating on Lake Shasta

Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to rent a jet ski, but we did play a whole lot of Big 2, Scrabble, Uno, Monopoly, Mah Jong, and Scattergories. We also managed to eat McDonalds, Burger King, and a lot of Top Ramen. I would say that my little semi health-conscious streak has gone down the drain with this one trip. I think I'll be eating salads and fruit for quite a while. That said, we saw Sonics near the Shasta Outlets on the ride home and demanded that we have lunch there. The good news is that we had a lot of laughs and interesting moments, and the trip was definitely relaxing. At one point in time, Jon lost his flip flop in the lake on the windiest day of the weekend and we had to brave the strong winds to save him. Let's just say it was a lot harder than we expected: he ended up treading and drinking a lot of lake water, my brother had swollen, bleeding lip, and our boat was a little weathered out.


A good 4-hour trip there...I taught my brother how to use the Nikon D300, knitted, and did sudoku.


This is one of my brother's shots. I was trying to teach him tracking.




Our daily diets? Top Ramen, chips, asian munchies, cream-stuffed cookies, and other delicious healthy foods.


We all love our threadless shirts. :D




Games, games, games. We determined that Shelton never wins. He won Monopoly the first night, and that was about it. Jon sweeped most games, but I managed to pull a few victories here and there.









After we pulled out of the dock and settled in one of the alcoves for the first night, Jon, Shelton, and I decided to go exploring. This first excursion was when we learned that the rocks and dirt areas around the shore were extremely muddy. My brother has a fascination with skipping rocks and managed to fall knee-deep into mud when he went a little too close to the waters. We also found the S.S. Relief floating further inside of the alcove. What is the S.S. Relief? Well, it's a floating building where you can relieve yourself if the boat you are on lacks the necessary facilities. It started floating closer to the shore so my brother hopped on (nature calls), but the winds conveniently picked up a bit, pushing the S.S. Relief back out into the waters. Yes, that's my brother attempting to kick it back to shore.


I never thought I'd actually know someone who owns obnoxiously bright-colored Crocs. Enter Jon. He bought this pair of orange Crocs for $15 and my brother and I had quite a fascination with taking pictures of them. I don't know where these Crocs would actually fit in. Definitely not during wet and muddy excursions around Lake Shasta.




Now, this is one of the best parts about being out on the lake, where nature is on all four sides and the nights are dark (streetlights ruin everything in the city). The sky was absolutely breathtaking. The sky was so clear that we could see the milky way and the three of us played with the Nikon D300 on 30" shutter speed at 2.8 aperature. This was the best I could do without a tripod while we were lying on the roof of our houseboat. It was a little too rocky.




We had a little too much fun with the manual settings. We grabbed our cell phones and used the light to write words and draw pictures. I wanted to make a cute "Love Emily" for the blog, but, as you can see, my attempts weren't exactly successful.


We headed to the Shasta Caverns the next day. As you can see, it is our first time houseboating and perhaps the first time my father has ever maneuvered a boat. We didn't realize that there is a metal walkway that drags out from underneath for entry purposes. Four of us just took off our shoes and embraced the slimy mud underneath our feet (I apologized to the clams that we harrassed). My mom? Well, the photo tells it all.


Shasta Caverns. The funny part was: Jon, Shelton, and I were discussing the name of our tour guide before we actually got to the caverns. He was showing us a couple of vista points and saying a few bits of history on the way up and he never mentioned his name. Jon and I started making up names to call him and I happened to say, "It should be an alliteration...Colin Caverns." What was his real name? Cooper.





Now, this is our dog's first vacation. This day was also the first day we let him past the railings onto the hanging part of the boat. We didn't realize that he would actually fall/jump into the waters.


Snoopy--being the brilliant dog that he is--ended up swimming underneath the boat and didn't think to turn around. He got all the way to the other end of the boat before he realized there was no way out on that side.







I love this picture because it is the epitome of my parents and the dog. Snoopy spent A LOT of time barking and whining this trip. He has a bad case of separation anxiety and starts to whine and cry when any one of us leaves. Notice my parents -- My mom was always snapping pictures during the trip, especially of my dog. My dad? Sitting back, relaxing, and holding a beer. Classic.


We had a few incidents with these stakes. A couple of times, the stakes came lose in the ground and our boat started drifting away. Our propeller ate one of the ropes after it slipped off the railing while we were cruising. We ended up leaving the hammer near dock by the caverns and had to drive all the way back to find it. Let me tell you, these are sneaky little stakes.


Our Sonics run: Oreo Sonic Blast, Strawberry Cream Pie Shake, Burgers, Chili Cheese Dogs, Chili Cheese Tots. Yes, the idea is to stay in your car and order, but with parents who weren't clear why we were so excited about...we had to step out of the car.

This trip was interesting to say the least. What have I learned? 1. I will never live on a boat for more than three days at a time 2. Energy-saving goes to a whole new level while boating 3. Strong winds are hard to steer in and practically always mean trouble 4. Bug bites swell to the size of my hand outside of Taiwan 5. Lake Shasta really is gorgeous 6. Mud is squishy and fun to soak my feet in

I am glad to be back. These photos took ages to edit and put together. Excuse some of the sloppy collage work--I really want to head to bed and get some sleep, but I also really wanted to blog about the trip. I know, a perfectionist like me is allowing sloppy alignment on the site. I promise you I'll do better editing next time. But for now, this will do.