4th of July Goes Awry

Our family tradition for the 4th of July involves a trip to Island Park to the cabin where they have it all.  A parade around the Island with lots of candy, a boat parade, an Island full of parties, and fireworks over the lake.

Our 4th of July this year started off with a bang.  Tanner and I took the younger kids to the cabin and Zac and Ashlyn planned to follow us up a day later when they got off of work.  Tanner and I took the boat and Tanner backed the boat into the water.  It took a bit to get the boat to start, but when we finally did, he launched me and took off in the truck to go park the boat trailer and I ran the boat down the reservoir to get it running as it was the first run of the season.  About 5 minutes later, black smoke started pouring from the engine and I could hear crackling.  I killed the engine and frantically searched for the fire extinguisher, which I could not find in my frenzy.  Fortunately, a kind older couple pulled up next to me and tossed me their fire extinguisher, then took me in their boat and we towed our boat back into the marina.  Ugh! No boating for us during the 4th.  Fortunately, later we would find out that we only needed to replace a few hoses and it wasn't the total loss we were worried it would be.

We called Zac and Ashlyn and told them to bring up the jet skis since we couldn't boat.  One jet ski was working and the other was in parts and pieces as Tanner was still learning and trying to perfect his mechanical skills.  We launched the one working jet ski, which only Tanner and Ian could run, as even I didn't know how to operate it without killing it constantly.  The boys parked the jet ski in the boat dock to come and have dinner and about an hour later, the Boat Club caretaker came running to tell us our jet ski was sinking.  Oh man!  We just couldn't catch a break.  Thankfully, we have awesome cabin neighbors who came to our rescue and helped us pull out the jet ski, and drain it to get it working again.

At least we were able to go to the parade without much incidence!

The engine after the boat fire

It was a rough summer where our poor boat ended up being in the shop more than it wasn't.  Fortunately, we were able to get it back just in time to get some fun in before Tanner left on his mission!