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What do you get when you combine 14 people who have never met, four wakeboard boats, and a houseboat on the beautiful Lake Shasta?  A hell of a good time!  Other than 2 people whom we had met one time briefly, the majority of people on this trip had never met other than chatting for 5 months on WakeWorld.  Everyone got a long, with a few people getting along REALLY well… if you know what I mean .

We spent the mornings chatting and wakeboarding and the afternoons napping, snacking, hanging out in the water and sunbathing on the boats… oh and drinking.  Depending on the mood, the evening ride and dinner times varied.  Some of us got in 2-3 rides per day, others were happy with 0-1.  We had great dinners of tacos, spaghetti, tri tip, salmon and mahi mahi, hamburgers & hot dogs and chili.   There was a lot of drinking going on all day and into the nights.  The beer bong was very popular and was out and being used most of the days/nights.  Sarah happened to be a bartender from Las Vegas so she kept the shots of fun drinks coming… which is what I drank most of the time.  Thanks to Jaime, we had a fire one night on shore and sat around until the wee hours of the morning drinking and BSing. 

So what happens when 14 people get to know each other and start drinking together???  Clothes start coming off.  We had topless night in the spa, topless and bottomless wakeboarding and I think someone even streaked through the houseboat.  Sorry, none of those pictures will make it into my online photo album.

I got to get used to my new wakeboard and I even learned a new trick!  This is big news cause I don\’t have many tricks in my bag.  I still can\’t land a one wake jump .  My new trick is a surface 180.  For those non wakeboarders, that means I can turn my board 180 degrees and ride with my other foot forward and then turn it back.  It\’s not pretty but I can do it!  I will continue to work this summer and perfecting it so that I can do it a full speed and not at sissy speed.  I also tried to surf.  This is is when you pile all the people and extra weight you can get onto one side of the boat and drive real slow creating a huge wake.  We have a small surf board and we ride the wake like in the ocean… only behind a boat and on a lake.  There are pictures of me TRYING but I am still waiting for the person with the camera to send them.  Tate also learned to surf but he did a MUCH better job than me.  He was actually able to let go of the rope and do some real surfing.

Tate did a couple new tricks too, but I couldn\’t tell you what they are.  He continues to progress.  He\’s even thinking of entering a local wakeboard competition in July.  More details to come if he decides to do it. 

We had some cooler weather than we wanted for a couple of days.  One day it actually rained on us. Luckily, we were moving the houseboat during that time and not just sitting and waiting for the rain to stop.  During the cooler days, the water was warmer than the air so we could still wakeboard and not freeze… that is, until you got OUT of the water.   The weather REALLY started to warm up and turn perfect the last two days of the trip. 

While on the boat, several of us talked about doing this trip again next year and how we could make it even better than this year.  After serious consideration, Tate and I volunteered to organize next year\’s trip.  We have a lot of new people interested in coming and even Jennifer has decided to fly out from Kentucky to join us!  Next year promises to be even better and more fun.  Everyone is so excited that we are talking about it daily and can\’t believe we have to wait another 12 months to go again.

If YOU are interested in going on next year\’s trip, be sure to let me know and I will give you all the details.  Until then, here is a link to my Yahoo photo album.  Be sure to check back often because the pics you see here are only the ones taken from my camera and a few misc pics taken from others.  I am currently awaiting pics from everyone else on the boat to add to the collection.  http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/litlone873/slideshow?.dir=/314bscd&.src=ph