Tubing Down the Guadalupe - Day 7

Our timeshare that we were staying in with my sister was perfect. It was called a tree-top villa, which is the perfect description because it was practically a tree house. In fact, Luke called it a tree house. It was a house built on stilts up in the tree tops. The second floor was the main floor with a kitchen living room, two bedrooms, and two bathroom. The third floor was a big loft and another bathroom. The first floor was bizarre. It was a big room with a washer and dryer, a stationary bike, and a huge hot tub, with another bathroom tucked in the corner. It was big enough to put a blow-up mattress if we needed it. So you could throw in your laundry and ride the stationary bike or take a dip in the hot tub while you waited for your load to get done. I chose the tub over the bike. Hey - I was on vacation.

The one down side was that we had to go up exactly 50 steps just to get to the front door. But the up side, which was the best part, was that we had the whole house to ourselves, and we were surrounded by trees. That means that the kids could run and jump and scream and do all the things that 9 kids would want to do in a place like that without disturbing any neighbors. Perfect!

After trekking around San Antonio all the day before, we decided day 7 of our vacation would involve just relaxing and enjoying the resort up in the hill country near Canyon Lake. We never made it to the lake, but we didn't need to. We managed to stay pretty wet anyway.

This pool was right across the street from our treehouse, was open until midnight, and we pretty much had the thing to ourselves. It was a great pool with this big watery island in the middle, and a few floating logs that were tethered down.

The kids had way too much fun on those!

When everyone had swam themselves out we decided it was time to relax a bit, not lounging in front of the TV, but lounging in inner-tubes in the Guadalupe River.

Apparently it is THE THING to do in the area - tubing on the Guadalupe River, and we are always game for a new adventure. Do what the locals do, right?

Well, there are tubing businesses all up and down the river. You rent a tube and pay a shuttle to take you up-river, drop you off, and let you float back down to where you parked your car.

That is how it works. But Dennis is kind of infamous for finding a "better way", so he went out and bought 8 inner-tubes, had them inflated, and then had to figure out how to get those huge things back to us. He managed somehow, and the nice people at our resort were kind enough to drop us off up river. It all worked out (he worried about how to pack all those inner-tubes in our car for the trip home later.) But what we are going to do with a bunch of lovely inner-tubes in the desert, I have no idea!

What a fun activity that was!!! It was a hot, hot day, but the river water was so cold, and most of the river was shaded by tall trees. The river was pretty shallow in most places, and we sometimes got caught and scraped over rocks (thank goodness the inner-tubes were fitted with hard plastic bottoms!) The kids could pretty mush stand up at any time.

The river flow was so slow that we just creeped along. The kids had so much fun and made up games and chased each other.

See the blue bus on the bridge with the trailer behind it to carry tubes? Vehicles like that where everywhere!

When we got in the river it seemed like everyone and their dog was floating in that river! Like I said, it is THE thing to do there. They would float in big groups, and usually had a tube or two that were just for their coolers.

Happily, we discovered that the place where we got in the river was where everybody was getting out, which means that in no time we had the whole river all to ourselves! Perfect!

Of course, this was another one of those situations where I couldn't bring my camera, so I just shot some quick pictures before giving it to Dennis to take this picture before putting it back in the car. We were all holding on to each other trying not to float away and leave Dennis behind by the time he got back from the car. Funny.

It is really too bad that I didn't have my camera because it was one of those times full of wonderful photo opportunities. It was absolutely gorgeous floating along that river! Cliffs and tall trees hung with long swaying clumps of moss, with huge roots right in the water. There were pretty little cabins and lots and lots of green and shade. We saw water fowl, dragon flies were landing on us, and we even caught glimpse of a turtle or two. It was just beautiful country, and so relaxing to float through it!

It took about two hours to float from our drop off point to our resort's dock on the river. We had floated home!

What a great way to spend a summer afternoon. That's what we need in the desert - a nice cold shady slow river. The ultimate lazy river. Oh well.

And when we climbed out of the river we walked past the resort's other pool, and of course, since we were already in our suits, why not go for another swim? I couldn't believe those kids had the energy!

When we finally made it back to the treehouse, everyone was hungry, exhausted, and water-logged.

It was probably my favorite day of the trip - just enjoying a new place, enjoying nature, enjoying each other... and staying cool.