Down a lazy river...

...in this case, the San Marcos, which, being spring-fed, is the only navigable stream worthy of the adjective during this beastly, 100+ every day drought. In addition to water, it also has a fair amount of shade, at least for the first part of our paddle last Saturday. On the right is a rather extreme example of the river's shade trees, a monumental cypress that was big enough to have its own island.

The picture above was taken as I was trying out one of our new kayaks (see both awaiting their maiden voyages at the left) while the car-shuttlers were shuttling at the beginning of the trip. This was my first experience with a sit-on-top kayak and I must say the ease with which you can dip hot feet in cool water, not to mention the easier getting-in-and-out-of-the-boat process, has made me a fan—at least for warm weather paddling.

Along with several other groups of boaters we took a long break at Cummings Dam** to swim in the extra-cool water below it.

That's especially welcome after the somewhat arduous process you have to go through to lower your boats down the side of it (only really crazy people try and go over). And it was even more welcome for us since we'd just made a Henry-inspired paddle up a very sluggish and bath-watery Blanco River (which joins the San Marcos a ways upstream from this dam) to a less-than-ideal lunch spot. Main problems with the site: warm, nearly stagnant water deprived us of our usual post-prandial swim, and there was very little shade. The little sojourn definitely reinforced my gut feeling that "paddling" and "upstream" are two words that should never be used together.

It was crowded on the river, much moreso than usual on our trips, but not surprisingly since this is the only water for miles around. But I wasn't ready for just how crowded it was until after Westerfield Crossing, when we ran into this sea—almost literally—of tubers. [not potatoes or turnips but "toobers"—otherwise known as floating globs of minors in possession]

You can only get a general idea of what this is like from this photo. But believe me, I felt like the guy in the lifeboats looking for Kate Winslet among the bobbing bodies after the Titanic went down. It was almost that hard to steer around the fun-loving young floaters. I thought you only saw this kind of traffic on the Guadalupe below Canyon Dam, but they must have been restricting the flow from that dam on Saturday to keep the lake from getting too low, and the toobers had nowhere else to go.

We need some rain! and we need it soon, but unfortunately the forecast looks pretty grim. I might have made my last paddle for a while....

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**Corrected by this email from Henry: That is Cummings Dam, not Martindale Dam. The latter is the one you dread, as you actually had to assist with the portage rather than watch the men (and Julie) do all of the work.