Sally Soccer

Just a few days after returning home from Colorado and New Mexico, Kathy and I made the journey north to Austin to visit the kids. The highlight was watching two of Sally's co-ed soccer teams play at Northeast Metro Park in Pflugerville.

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We caught just the end of the first game. Here Sally is involved in some action in front of the goal.

The second game was an end-of-season match for FNA, and had a kind of celebratory flair to it. Here Kathy holds one of the many posters made for the game. In this case, one of the few that could be pictured here.

Sally in action.

Sally and a teammate (in this case, another Alamo Heights graduate) take a water break. Hal and Carey, meanwhile, enjoyed some stronger beverages generously provided by the team and its fans.

Who knew that the beautiful game could be so painful?

Despite many opportunities, it seemed that neither team was going to score.

Evidence of rampant commercialism was everywhere.

Soccer is definitely a contact sport.

A teammate gets ready for takeoff.


Sally celebrates making the sole goal late in the game. FNA wins 1-0!

A raffle was held after the game. The grand prize was a ball signed by all of the players. Awesome!

The happy family poses after the game.

Note: For 75 additional photos of these games, click here to connect to my Flickr page, then click on "Slideshow."

Saturday Paddlers - Guadalupe River

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Honey Creek

A large group of paddlers showed up to run the five-mile stretch from the Guadalupe River State Park to Nichols Landing. The river was flowing at just under 200 cfs, according to the Spring Branch gauge, which is located about 5.6 miles downstream from our take-out.

When we arrived at Nichols Landing with our vehicles while running the shuttle, the parking lot was too full to accommodate most of our cars. The Comal County attendant on duty was not particularly helpful, and didn't provide us with any alternatives. Not really a very good operation for the launching point of an official State of Texas Paddling Trail. But worse was yet to come from our friendly Comal County officials. More on that later.

The river at the State Park was a madhouse, full of swimmers and those floating on tubes and swimming pool toys. One clueless tuber asked Kathy how long it took to "get back around." Kathy tried to explain the linear nature of a river, but was too busy dodging swimmers and tubers to successfully make the point. I guess not everyone understands the difference between a river and a water park.

Mike checks his watch as the Saturday Paddlers get ready to launch at the State Park. He was paddling the Dagger Dimension whitewater canoe solo, in preparation for our upcoming trip on the Rio Chama. The experiment was a success, even though a thwart thwarted him from sitting in the bow seat and paddling the canoe with the stern leading the way. Of course, sitting in the stern position without a passenger up front meant that the bow was high and out of the water. After a while, we lessened the trim problem somewhat by placing Robert's ice chest in the canoe and as far forward as possible.

Several of us paddled a short distance up Honey Creek to look at the small waterfall (see photo at beginning of this post). Some got a little tangled up as we turned around to head back to the Guadalupe. Above, Mike snaps a photo of Joline, below, as she tries to avoid being run over.

Nancy

Limestone bluffs added to the scenery.

At our lunch stop, we enjoyed a variety of cold treats. I served frozen margaritas and Robert provided ice cream sandwiches and fruit bars. I won't describe how Reiko entertained us with her frozen fruit bar. You'll just have to ask her.

Kathy














Cynthia

Linda

Sandra

Joan

When we arrived at Nichols landing, one of those who had found a space in the parking lot gave those who had not a ride up to their vehicles. Because of "No Parking" signs along Old Spring Branch Road, they had driven the half mile to the intersection with Spring Branch Road, and parked in a clear area off to the side of that major road. Despite the complete absence of any signs prohibiting parking next to or along the road, they arrived to find parking violation tickets on their windshields. I witnessed the parking attendant at the Nichols Landing parking lot being upset when the paddlers left the full lot to head up to the main road, and can only surmise that he called a buddy in the sheriff's office to teach us a lesson. Or maybe the County needs the revenue generated by fines. In any event, they certainly don't seem interested in promoting tourism and the commerce generated by visiting paddlers.

The tickets were dismissed when the paddling criminals dared to show up at their court hearing. The County prosecutor admitted that there had been no violation, but warned them that they would be ticketed again if they parked next to the main road! Go figure. Better yet, contact Comal County officials to let them know what you think about their hospitality.

Note: To view an additional eight photos of this outing, click here to link to my Flickr page, then click on "Slideshow."

Guadalupe River

While the Saturday Paddlers used the Monday holiday to run a stretch up near Waring, five us decided we were ready for something involving a little more adrenalin. Or perhaps we wanted to live up to the name of this blog. Anyway, with the gauges showing there was more water downstream from the recent rains, we chose the FM 311 to Rebecca Creek Road section of the Guadalupe River. According to the Spring Branch gauge, the river was running a little over 450 cfs. The five hardy paddlers were Joan, Julie, Mike, Robert, and me.

After I dropped off my van and trailer at the take-out, and after a short delay due to confusion about on which side of the bridge I would be parked, Joan picked me and my boat up and drove us to the FM 311 bridge. The others were waiting for us there.

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Thanks to Robert for all of the photos. I had decided to use the shortest boat in my stable, a Dagger Mamba 8.5, and so did not bring my camera along. The photo above shows me sneaking around some downed timber to get to the drop on river right at Mueller Falls. Mike and Julie, who like Joan and Robert took the swift channel to the left of the island, are seen surfing in the background. They had gone ahead and were able to verify that my path was not blocked by any debris not visible from above.

I showed off the latest style - protecting my head from both the sun and the rocks. Definitely dorky.

We stopped just below one of the rapids for lunch. Robert's photo caught me in the act of serving the frozen margaritas. Perhaps I should have waited until after Rust Falls to drink mine.

While the others scouted at Rust Falls, I went ahead and ran it on far river right. There usually isn't enough water on that side. I made it through successfully, and then returned for another go.

Julie and Mike took the usual route on river left, avoiding the main falls.

Joan did the same.

I decided to return back upstream and run the horseshoe section of the main falls, something I had successfully done a couple of other times at lower water. I first acted as the safety as Robert successfully ran the drop. Julie then positioned herself between the trees just below the drop with my throw bag, and Mike waited below. Unfortunately, I gave everyone the show they had been waiting for. Trying to avoid the water crashing in from my right, I hit the drop just a little too far to river left. This meant I ran into the submerged roots of the large cypress guarding the entrance. Since the roots were sloped, my boat rolled over onto its right side and I ended up upside down at the bottom of the falls. Boat, paddle, and one sandal continued on downstream as I grabbed the rescue rope thrown by Julie. No damage done - unless you count my pride.

Despite my mishap, it was a good run and we all had fun. Thanks again to Robert for providing all of the photos. Sorry we didn't get one of him to prove that he was really there.

Father's Day on the San Marcos River

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.

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.

Bandera Canyonlands and Medina River

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About thirty people gathered early on a Saturday morning at the third crossing of the North Prong of the Medina River on FM 2107. We were there to participate in a North Prong Medina River Watershed Tour sponsored by the Medina River Protection Fund. Our kind hosts were Judy and Jerry Pierce. Shown above is Judy giving a brief introduction at the crossing. From there, the Pierces led us up Mickle Creek Road to their Lonesome Hills Ranch, the site of our tour.

We hiked up a small ravine, passing by several small springs. The water table had risen after most of the juniper had been cleared from the ranch, and there was quite a variety of trees and plants. Above, Jerry explains the work they have done at the ranch as Bob Brischetto, who helped organize the tour, listens.

Blackberries were starting to ripen on this bush. They were quite tasty.

With no livestock grazing, the grasses and flowers were quite lush.

After the severe flooding in 1978, the Corps of Engineers had constructed several dams along the Medina River tributaries. One of them created this lake at Lonesome Hills Ranch.

After the formal tour was over, about a dozen of us accompanied our hosts on a driving tour up FM 2107. The road crossed the North Prong several times as we gained elevation, and the scenery was very nice.

At one crossing, the river spilled over rock ledges between large bald cypress trees.

We speculated about how long ago this boulder had broken free from the rock face.

Nancy found a comfortable seat.


Looking down about fifteen feet to the shallow river.

With our headwaters tour over, we drove back to the town of Medina to pick up the boat trailer and vehicles we had left there on the way up to the North Fork. Of course, we also had to eat lunch at Love Creek Orchards Cider Mill and Country Store, which is where we had parked our gear.

After lunch, ten of us launched our kayaks at the Camp Bandina crossing. Earlier that morning, on our way up from Bandera,we had left a couple of vehicles at the Peaceful Valley Road crossing, about 3.5 river miles downstream from our put-in. Those deciding that the day would not be complete without actually getting on the river were Stan, Joline, Nancy, Dan, Cynthia, Bill, Bob, Linda, Laurel, and I. Sorry I didn't get a group photo.

Joline, Cynthia, and Dan pretended to be enjoying themselves.

Some deeper water gave Dan an opportunity to practice his roll. Cynthia was ready to provide any assistance that might be needed.

Along the way, Bob worked hard to remove some of the invasive water plants that had established a foothold in one section of the river. Sorry I didn't get a photo of his efforts. The roots those plants have are really large.

A merry group (Joline, Nancy, Stan, and Linda) at the take-out. Looks like Stan's whistle worked well in calling the wildlife.

Note: To view an additional 22 photos of this outing, click here to be linked to my Flickr page, then click on "Slideshow."