If you’ve followed this blog for over a year, or read the archives, you may recall our last experience with Lake Mead. Brett and I rented jetskis on a windy day and were basically flogged by the lake until we crawled out of it, bruised and missing a few things.

This year we vowed to try again. We have rented a 22-foot jet boat so that Eleanor and Emma can join us. Brett flew in this morning and we picked up the boat in the afternoon. We’ll take our first ride on the lake Monday morning.

Renting a boat is much harder than renting a car, renting a 28-foot box truck, or running for President of the United States. At least when running for President you don’t have to sign half a dozen liability releases and watch a tedious 30-minute safety video. (But maybe that’s not a bad idea — it might cut down on the crop of publicity-seeking candidates.) We endured the process and at the end I think we basically agreed to buy the boat if we ding it.

That may be a small challenge. Lake Mead is down to its lowest level in 40 years. There are islands poking up that we didn’t see last year, and some shallow areas are now dry. The low level is quite visible as a white “bathtub ring” on the rocks. The white is caused by minerals deposited on the rocks, not by bleaching as a lot of people guess.

Fortunately, the canyons are very deep and still run 300-400 feet. That’s also where the nicest boating can be found, so we’ll concentrate some time there and try to avoid the various submerged objects (ferries, airplanes, even an entire town) that Lake Mead normally covers. With some luck, our day on the lake will be much more successful than last year.