Table of Contents
Trip Reports
San
Marcos River Cleanup
by Cecilia Gill
Instead of being smart and going up to pecan park retreat friday night,
we waited to leave saturday morning. first, I woke up late, which should
have only put us about half an hour behind. Then, there was something
going on on I-10 headed west, so we sat for an hour between Voss and Fry
road. As a result, we got there an hour and a half late, about 10:30ish.
then, after we got there, no one seemed to know anything, so we went ahead
and set up camp at Pecan Park retreat.
T hen the fun started. I got our two little whitewater kayaks off the
jeep and suited up my two boys (ages 2 and 5) in their wet suits. Mokai,
(2 years old) had a fit because he didn't want to wear his pfd. I made
it very clear, "no pfd, no river." He relented, with much complaining.
Then, instead of riding with Lonnie in his kayak which Ihad tied to mine
to tow it, he insisted on riding on the back of mine, sitting with his
feet in the boat right behind me. this put me in a wierd position, so
that my feet eventually went numb. Once i convinced him to get in the
other boat with his big bro, we set off to gather trash in the flat water
area along Pecan Park and a little further upstream.
I started off trying to put the trash in a trash bag, which became a problem
that i won't bore you with. so then, I had the brilliant idea of just
putting the cans and plastic bottles (pretty much all we found) in the
boy's kayak and in mine, the idea being that we would bag the trash after
we got back to pecan park. I heard a splash behind me. I looked, and it
just looked like the boys were splashing their hands in the water. They
were laughing, having a great time. I heard another splash a little later,
and realized that mokai was tossing the trash BACK into the river! "No,
no!" I told him. "We're trying to CLEAN the river, not dirty
it!" so I had to go back and re-pick up the cans that they threw
in. Then, around 3:30 or 4:00, the boys were tired of sitting in the boat
and wanted to jump in. So we went back, and swam around by the little
rapid at Pecan Park.
T hat night, after the wonderful fish fry dinner at Spencer's, the boys
conked out early, and so did I.
Sunday morning, we played some more in the river, paddled some, swam some,
and generally had a great time. Bob Foote was there teaching a class.
Lonnie wants a paddle next time... and both boys want to go through the
rapids. Maybe they're ready for that, maybe not... but I'M not ready for
them to go through the rapids yet! Ii think we may have a couple of up
and coming little kayaker's on our hands! Are we ready for this? I sure
hope so! I never got any pictures of anything, but Bob Foote did take
a picture of the boys in their little white kayak.
Then we packed up to go to a friend's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's....
When we got there, Lonnie looked around at the madness in there, looked
up at me, and said, "Go back to the campsite? Go back to the river?"
T hat's my boy!