What better way to start the day then with costumes. Me with my mom's old matching short suit and Carla in a classy little romper, we were ready to paddle.
We headed out to the main channel with silky smooth water under our boards. As we neared the exit of the canyon we passed the morning tour boat heading to the bridge. As expected, gobs of tourists hung over the sides to take pictures of the best dressed paddlers on the lake. I hope it causes future confusion over which decade they visited the southwest.
On to Little Oak Canyon where one of the big draws was a floating restroom. Lake Powell is fully a "pack it out" area and the idea of not carrying a couple days worth of bowel movements on our boards was always appealing. Little Oak is actually a big bay with fantastic sandy beaches and two small side canyons to explore. In the summer it is over run with houseboats, but we were the only people around. 
At the end of many of the side canyons, the water is retreating enough to expose the old dead cottonwood trees. Sometimes as we paddled in you could look down into the water and see the algae covered branches reaching up towards the sky like rotting skeleton fingers. The lake is also a haven for fishermen with bass, walleyes and huge stripers drawing people from all over to try their luck. In the shallows 2' carp would slither lazily through the mud, breaching the surface and making audible popping sounds as they mouthed the surface.
Oak Canyon was fairly wide with cool grottos lining the sides and a fast moving creek running through. There are suppose to be Moki steps carved into the rock walls to allow the Anasazi to access the mesa tops, but we never found them
Where the water level never reached the canyon floors, there were so many different kinds of flowers and grasses. Every time we turned a corner we were met with the bewitching smell of desert flowers and would fill our noses with the scents.
As dusk started to set in we headed back to camp sidestepping around little frogs and prickly pear cactus. The moon rose so bright that night, just a day away from being full, that we walked along the beaches without headlamps long after the sun went down.
Beautiful scenery, and very descriptive.
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