It's summer. A busy time at the kayak shop which means that I rarely have time to actually get out and enjoy the Texas landscape. Last weekend, though, I made it a point to take a mini-vacation. I turned off my cell phone, left work early on Thursday, and even handed the kayak shops over to both Justin and Pavel...and didn't call them all weekend asking for updates (if you only knew what a huge deal that was for me).
The main reason for the mini-vacation was that friends and family were in town from overseas. My oldest niece, who lives in London, was visiting for 3 weeks. Plus, two very good friends (and honestly, I usually refer to them as family as well since I've lived in their home and vice-versa) were visiting from Germany.
So, what do you do when you have 3 days off from work and a truck full of foreigners plus a neighbor who hails from Arkansas? Head for the river! We loaded up as many kayaks as my Tacoma could carry and decided to do a multiple day/multiple river paddling trip. Day 1: We started off on the Guadalupe River below Canyon Lake Dam. Due to an agreement between the Guadalupe River Authority and Guadalupe Trout Unlimited, water is being consistently released from the dam all summer, which means that flows are perfect right now to paddle! As we all know, summer on the Guadalupe means tubing, so we hit the river early in an effort to make it through the rapids before a majority of the tubers woke up.
The Guadalupe River, at this flow rate, is a great paddle. Most of the rapids are low Class II and easily navigable. Even the Devil's Playground, contrary to how its name sounds, is a fun, straight-forward rapid when the river flow rate is slightly elevated. The only wipeout of the day happened at The Chute. One person got sideways and lodged against two rocks, which caused a minor river pile-up. I have to confess that after we dislodged the pile-up and everyone was safely heading back down river, I took advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention to me and hiked back up to the top of The Chute with my Liquid Logic XP 9 to rerun the rapid. It was just too perfect not to play a little. Also, a quick shout-out to the kid that rescued our Pringles from a watery death in The Chute...and then proceeded to eat them. Sorry your Dad yelled at you, dude, but he had a good point--never eat something that has been opened and floats down river to you.
And of course, the only way to top off the perfect river trip is to go eat BBQ. So, we drove up to the Salt Lick in Driftwood to top our evening off with BBQ, potato salad, jalapenos, and some tasty, tasty Pecan Pie!
Day Two: Found us on the San Marcos River from Pecan Park Retreat to Skulls Crossing. Since we had mastered the Guadalupe River, I was pretty confident in my crew's ability to navigate Cottonseed Rapids at the end of the San Marcos float. Once again, the recent rain has the San Marcos up and running! The extra water flow makes it a little easier to get through some of the obstacles, such as the broken dam just down river of the put-in. Usually, you have to paddle hard to not get sucked up against the portion of the dam that is still in the water. With the elevated flows, though, I found a majority of our crew floated right over before they even realized the concrete obstacle was there!
As we were finishing up the San Marcos float, a friend that had come on the trip with us paddled up to me and was beaming from all the excitement. He kept telling me how much he had enjoyed the kayaking trips. In fact, the whole group (though a little tired from all the traveling and paddling) kept saying how much they had enjoyed the rivers. Moments like those remind me how lucky we are to have such a gorgeous area within a few hours drive. Clear, clean water lined with cypress trees...it's picture perfect...and we get to enjoy it any time we want.
Also, just so you don't think I'm losing my edge...we paddled a local river about a week ago with one mission in mind--to catch some big Bass. We had rigged up the fly rods with large top-water poppers and hit the river around 6pm in the evening. After landing about a half dozen decent sized fish (around 2lbs or so), I told my fishing partner that I was done for the night since it was dark and I was hungry. He told me that I should toss a few more casts out. The next cast, I landed a 4lb+ bass...on my fly rod! What a way to top off the evening! The picture is horrible since all we had was my cell phone and it was dark outside, but you get the idea. It was big, and it was awesome.
I heart Central Texas.
Colleen
Heart of Texas Kayaks
254-773-9257
