Virgin Voyage of the Riken Raft
As you may know, I got a really great eBay deal on a used whitewater raft. It even included a trailer. Just one small detail - we had to drive to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to pick up the bargain. Kathy and I made the trip in May, and now had the raft (along with a few other purchases) sitting in the garage. What to do?
Plans were made for Father's Day. We drove up to Austin on Saturday evening, pulling the trailer behind us, and spent the night with Hal and Carey in their new home. On Sunday morning, I headed alone down IH-35 to Buda for a "quick" shopping trip at Cabela's. Kathy and the kids gave me a head start, and then drove to San Marcos. They had a beer near the courthouse square as I completed my shopping. We then met at the Cape Road crossing of the San Marcos River, towards the end of Thompson's Island. We left Sally's car there, and headed in the van to City Park for our launch.
We carried some additional passengers with us - three clueless young men who had floated from the park down to the road crossing, thinking that there was a shuttle to take them back. They were getting ready to walk back to the park (one of them in bare feet, as he had lost his sandals on the river), a 2.3-mile hike to the other side of the Interstate, carrying their inflatable pool floats. Two of them rode in the trailer, perched atop our raft. As it turned out, their vehicle was in a prime parking space at the City Park. After unloading the raft from the trailer (with their help) and unhitching the trailer, we were able to park our van in their spot. We used the hand pump to top off the raft, loaded the beer cooler and other necessities, worked our way past the numerous picnickers, and slid the raft into the water. We were underway.
Plans were made for Father's Day. We drove up to Austin on Saturday evening, pulling the trailer behind us, and spent the night with Hal and Carey in their new home. On Sunday morning, I headed alone down IH-35 to Buda for a "quick" shopping trip at Cabela's. Kathy and the kids gave me a head start, and then drove to San Marcos. They had a beer near the courthouse square as I completed my shopping. We then met at the Cape Road crossing of the San Marcos River, towards the end of Thompson's Island. We left Sally's car there, and headed in the van to City Park for our launch.
We carried some additional passengers with us - three clueless young men who had floated from the park down to the road crossing, thinking that there was a shuttle to take them back. They were getting ready to walk back to the park (one of them in bare feet, as he had lost his sandals on the river), a 2.3-mile hike to the other side of the Interstate, carrying their inflatable pool floats. Two of them rode in the trailer, perched atop our raft. As it turned out, their vehicle was in a prime parking space at the City Park. After unloading the raft from the trailer (with their help) and unhitching the trailer, we were able to park our van in their spot. We used the hand pump to top off the raft, loaded the beer cooler and other necessities, worked our way past the numerous picnickers, and slid the raft into the water. We were underway.
Kathy, Sally, Carey, and Hal provided the power strokes, while I sat perched on the stern and steered. There were a lot of people in the river, most of them tubing. Very few of them appeared to ever check their rear view mirrors to see what was catching up to them. The young swimmers jumping into the first chute at Rio Vista Dam were particularly unaware of the floating behemoth bearing down on them. I'm not sure how many bodies we ran over at the falls. I do know that my paddle contacted at least one head as the raft climbed over the huge standing wave at the bottom of the first drop. Fortunately, no damage done, and perhaps one swimmer learned a valuable lesson.
About two miles downstream of the Park, we arrived at the top of Thompson's Island. We chose not to run Cape Falls, which leads to the main channel of the river on the right side of the island, as we had been advised that there was a large downed tree blocking that channel. As we stayed left, we spotted this Yellow-crowned Night Heron on the left bank. She wasn't particularly happy to see us, but didn't take flight, either. From there, it was only a few hundred yards along the left channel, an old mill race, to our take-out at Cape Road. Once there, Sally drove me back to City Park to pick up the van and trailer. Soon the kids were headed back north to Austin and Kathy and I were on our way south to San Antonio. It had been a great Father's Day.
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