Water at Last!
Three of us celebrated the break in our drought by heading with our boats to the Medina River. Yes, I played hooky from the office. The motivating factor was that the river was running between 275 cfs (as measured by the gauge at the Patterson Ave. crossing in Medina) and almost 400 cfs (according to the gauge in Bandera). These compared to readings of less than 5 cfs at both gauges just eight days earlier.
We launched our two kayaks and one canoe at the roadside park on Hwy. 16 at Ranger Crossing. Our journey ended only 5.5 miles downstream at Bandera City Park.
Gary leads the way shortly after our launch.
Bob and Gary enjoy the moving water.
We stopped for lunch at the dam just upstream of Schmidtke Road in Bandera. Our snacks were augmented by frozen margaritas.
Appropriately nourished, we paddled the short distance to our takeout at the City Park.
Although the paddling ended up being less exciting than we had anticipated, it was great just being on the river again.
