The two little ones left on Saturday to go on their annual summer camping trip with Nonnie and PawPaw. We never get the opportunity to do something with just the older two boys, so we took advantage of the weekend and headed out. Early Friday morning, we dropped off Tony and Jordonna with PawPaw, picked up a hammock and a couple tents from him, then we were on our way to New Braunsfels.
Growing up, we spent every summer in New Braunsfels - stayed at Hidleburg, swam in the Comal, went to Schlitterbahn, floated through rapids (real ones, not the ones like they have now) and some summers even toured the caverns. While we have gone and camped a few summers since I've had my own kids, we have never taken them down the Guadalupe. That was without doubt on our "to do" list for this weekend.
We arrived in New Braunsfels around 10:00, found a primitive campsite on the river and set up camp. No water, no electricity and really no designated site - just pick a place and set up, come back later and you may have neighbors sharing a space with you or a tent set up where you once parked your car. It was loud, but let that go for a bit. After a few sandwiches, we headed off to get tubes (or toobs as they call them and Dylan just doesn't understand why!) and float back to our campsite.
It was about a mile and half float - took 5 hours. The water was slow and there were only 3 sections of rapids and we literally had to get out of our toobs and walk across them. The only good rapid was going through the bridge at the very end. This was not the exact experience I recalled from my childhood, but was glad the boys had a good time anyways. Perhaps one day they can experience it like I remember it. At least I know I would like to, because as a kid I was always so freaked out by the rapids that I wouldn't enjoy that part of the float, but now I could.
That evening we grilled burgers and hot dogs. We thankfully had decent neighbors set up camp next to us so Richard and Dylan visited with them for a bit. Dylan had set up the hammock (with a pull string) so I was set to comfortably swing and relax in the hammock. Josh took a nap. They did some fishing with a cane pool Dylan bought from the camp store. That evening Dylan and the guys next to us passed around the guitar and played a few songs. I was enjoying our time together.
Then 3am came! Music was still playing, people were still setting up tents, it was full blown craziness! Yes, we had picked the "Party Central" campsite that does not monitor or enforce any loud noise rules. Absolutely not a family campsite!! One positive - when you wake up at 7am to cook breakfast - they are all still asleep!
Saturday morning we decided to head to Schlitterbahn; however, traffic was awful - over an hour and we still had yet to get to a parking lot. If traffic getting in was this bad, imagine what the lines would look like so we made a left hand turn rather than a right hand turn and stopped at Ducky's. So many memories of this area from my childhood! We bought 4 tubes (because it was cheaper this way) and drove over to Landa Park. Even though this was not in the game plan, it ended up being a better idea for the day. We floated the Comal all the way around, through the chute and a few other rapids. Much better experience than the Guadalupe.
We headed back to our campsite to only find that a new crowd had joined the previous one and it was almost impossible to maneuver a car through. Richard and I took naps- me in the hammock again :) and the boys went out fishing again. The music only got worse and louder as the evening went on. By the time we were grilling sausage for dinner, the exhaust near our camp was even bad because the music was played from their cars that they left RUNNING! We tossed around the idea of moving campsites (lots of work), finding a hotel in town (didn't pan out, no vacancies) or just loading up and heading home.
Around 1:30 am, we pulled into my parents driveway and spent the night there. Everyone must have been exhausted because we all slept in til close to noon! We enjoyed a nice quite day of no schedule, I finished my homework and submitted it on time, and recovered from a long, but oh so relaxing weekend.
Recall I said primitive camping - so I didn't allow any pictures to be taken because you really begin to look rough when you are "ruffin' it". We were thankful for showers when we got home! Even with the craziness of our campsite I'd say we had a great weekend and I loved spending time with just the two older boys, not having to keep a watchful eye on the two little ones which takes away from the older ones. My boys made me proud, too. While we were floating, Josh would pick up beer cans that had been tossed in the water. They had manners. While Dylan shared a guitar with the neighboring campers he played songs from Robby Seay and Hillsong even while the others choose some not so appropriate songs - Dylan was still being a witness. Even though they are teenagers and can drive us crazy, they reminded us that we have some good boys!
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