My daughter, Melanie and I returned from our 1st official Daddy/Daughter vacation in the Texas Hill Country. We had fun. Here are some of my recollections of the past six days:
Sunday June 27th Travelled to New Braunfels, Texas. It was a scorcher. Upon arrival, after greetings and unloading of the car, we soaked ourselves in the cool, cool Guadalupe River sitting on a large rock across from the Terri and Larry's (my sister and brother in law) camper while toobers and rafters went by. Only one C O G spotted.
Monday June 28th First official float down the Guadalupe for Melanie. We put in at Lazy L&L Outfitters and casually floated for about four hours to our campsite at Rainbow Camp New Braunfels and had lunch. After that we floated down to the Chutes and that is where the fun started. I forgot to mention that my darling daughter's inner tube was tethered to mine when we entered the chutes (not a bright idea). Needless to say there are several choke points where the river shoots you past large boulders...that is unless a rope wraps around said large boulder and one toober (Melanie) goes to the right and the other(Dad who is starting to enter the freaked out parent zone)goes left. I was worried she would get swept away down river and I would have my photo posted on the bad daddy website for all eternity. After I realized all she had to do was stand up and let her tube go with Dad, who was at the mercy of the river, I tell her to wait and I will come back with her tube and get her. I couldn't really enjoy the rest of the Chutes because of my parental guilt trip so I hurriedly paddled to the shore and along with her Uncle Larry and Aunt Terri we walked back to retrieve Melanie. Melanie jumps in her tube shoots the Chutes and proceeds to get out and gives me the look (which I deserved after entering the afore mentioned freaked out parent zone) and says lets do it again . We shoot the Chutes several more times without any further embarrassment for my daughter and we get out at Bezdek's . I got a little sun on my ankles! I always forget to put sunscreen on my ankles!
Tuesday June 29th We went to Schlitterbahn! Waited for 2 hours to ride the Master Blaster Water Coaster. I thought the wait was entirely too long until about 30 seconds into the ride at which point I was laughing and screaming all the way to the bottom of the ride. Well worth standing in line. We checked out the rest of the park before returning to the original park where all our food and drinks were. We spent the rest of our day riding several of the rides. Some with tubes some without. Melanie became separated on one tube ride called the Congo River Ride, got stuck in one spot where the water spins you around, met a boy, who helped her. Made eye contact and smiled at each other in mutual admiration until some other girl got in between them and Melanie didn't ask the mystery boy his name. I didn't learn of this until later but I noticed Melanie was walking slower and keeping some distance from us adults the whole day.
Wednesday June 30th My niece Elissa and a couple of her friends came from Corpus Christi and we hung out at the camp site until the evening when we went into Gruene. Went to Gruene Hall. Tried to get Melanie to dance with her dad...unsuccessfully. I wanted to teach Melanie how to two step, she had other ideas. We played pool and listened to some good Texas music. I will keep asking Melanie to dance.
Thursday July 1st It rained on us and we were for a short while the only people floating the river (at least our part of the river). The water was moving quicker than earlier in the week. The warm rain drops felt good after floating in the river without sunshine. We went through the Chutes again and again...this time without any embarrassment to Melanie.
Friday July 2nd There is not much I can write about for this day because Melanie, her Aunt Terri, cousin Elissa and her two friends Julia and Trey went to the Imax theatre on the other side of San Antonio to see Eclipse. I haven't seen or read any of the Twilight Saga...by design. We ate lunch after their movie said our goodbyes and left the Hill Country in the pouring rain. Stopped at Bucee's near Luling. Sampled some jerky bought Mel a t-shirt and drove us home. I hate getting stuck in Houston traffic without a GPS. I will leave it with that.
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