Houseboat

When the topic of Raystown Lake, south central Pennsylvania's gem on the dammed (not damned) Juniata River, comes up, rumors abound. So we invited some friends from Michigan down to check on the rumors' veracity. So Josh, Steph, Charlie, Abby, Mike, Laura, Chad, and Kathi left dock on Boat #7 for a 3-day tour ... a 3-day tour.

First, Raystown Lake claims to have the second largest lake monster in the world. While the Loch Ness monster of Scotland takes the cake as larger and more violent, "Raystown Ray" measures a formidable 40-50 feet in length but is widely believed to be herbivorous - posing little threat to tourists past the initial surprise of seeing a large water dinosaur.

Although we did not see Ray during our Fourth of July weekend excursion (maybe he was scared by the booming fireworks), we did see many large objects in the water (this includes turtles, blue gill, seaweed, white whales, a river rat, and Chad, who now weighs a chubby 167.5 pounds after gorging himself while on vacation).

Second, we had heard claims of the people of Pennsyl-tucky. This is a group rumored to inhabit the area of central PA between Bradford in the north and Chambersburg in the south - a group that lives in Pennsylvania but, based on their appearance and behavior, should live in Kentucky. In a move not dissimilar from the Mormon trek from Illinois to Utah or the Seminole tribe's Trail of Tears, Pennsyl-tuckians reportedly moved north and east from Kentucky when semi-annual dentist visits came into vogue and mulletts went out of vogue, but lost a lot of their troops as they passed through West Virginia.

Rich Rodriguez's wife/sister, a member of this latter group, proved the truth of this rumor as she joined our houseboat for our tribute to the Pennsyl-tuckians - "Redneck/NASCAR Night" (see Coach Rod's wife/sister in the white tank top? It says Michigan on it - real trashy!).

During our Redneck/NASCAR Night festivities, we saw other houseboats float by with its cargo dressed in similar attire to ours. "I built this gut 12 oz. at a time," read one guy's shirt on an empty-beer-can-strewn Boat #16. His buddy wore cut-off denim with a picture of a wolf on it.

Excited to see that others had the same idea we did about dress-up theme nights, we yelled to Boat 16, "Are you guys celebrating Redneck/NASCAR Night, too?" We saw them three days later when we checked-out and they were still celebrating Redneck/NASCAR Night as they drove off in their pick-up trucks.

We did, however, get a chance to meet some locals, as an Amish couple joined us for our Celebrity Couple theme night. Moses and Abigail Klopfenstein got to spend some quality time with pseudo-Kid Rock and Pam Anderson, pseudo-Britney and K-Fed, and pseudo-Dwight Schrute and Angela. While Moses remained stoic and out of his element, Abigail seemed to enjoy herself. Finally, we celebrated 80s night in honor of the air temperature, the water temperature, the amount of times we played "Catch Phrase," and the decade in which we grew up. Chad played rock star, Josh played Miami Vice, Charlie played Caddyshack, Kathi played New Kids on the Block, Steph played Saved by the Bell, Abby played Cyndi Lauper, and Mike and Laura played Richard Simmons and Denise Austin.