Rivers have water!

We had some heavy rains last weekend.

kids visiting for Memorial Day, chowing down on Tex-Mex...
note the rain outside the window!

I'm sure it did interfere with lots of holiday outing plans, but it had one wonderful result...actual paddleable water flow in rivers that haven't seen it in a long time. Even in rivers that we've never paddled before!

Blanco River from our takeout, between Wimberley and Blanco (town)

We had many choices of where to go paddling yesterday [YES, yesterday, Thursday! It was a first weekday paddle for me (other than on official vacations)...something to look forward to doing more often once retirement happens].

What made the decision relatively easy was that there was enough water in the Blanco River, in a stretch even Henry had never seen before. And was it ever a great choice! We had a wonderful time, and the river was simply beautiful. I took a lot of pictures to convince you of this. Here are a few:

There were challenges along the way: several narrow, rocky, rapids, some of which needed to be portaged. But they mainly just added to the fun of the afternoon.

Joan works on lining through a difficult section
(I was stuck on a rock at the beginning, so my camera stayed steady!)

my boat getting ready to be lined over a lovely little fall

advance visibility for some of the rapids was poor...but what great background scenery!

Henry waits downstream, with lost boats, after Robert and I went swimming
(he and Joan had chosen wiser courses)

The cliffs where I stopped to snap the picture above of my boat rescuer were some of the most striking elements of the Blanco River scenery. Here are some more shots of them:

Robert relaxes by an impressive cliff

cliffs and ferns

gliding by

Usually towards the end of an 8-mile (estimated) paddle I'm ready to take out. But yesterday even I was a little sorry to see the bridge up ahead, signalling the end of this very pleasant outing.

I'm a little sore today, but it was worth it. So nice to be able to take advantage of fleeting high water when it's available. I think retirement might be pretty sweet....