On the Comal

Hello fellow idyll-ers! (aka my 1 friend reading this)

This weekend we returned from a spontaneous trip to New Braunfels, where we spent Saturday floating on the Comal River, the longest shortest river in the world. The five of us mistakenly assumed that since schools had started in the previous week, perhaps the demand for floating had died down. Well, we were VERY wrong. As far as the eyes could see, tubes were packed in like sardines. Colorful little donuts filled with mostly early-to mid twenties people, it seemed like everyone on this side of Houston was fed up with the heat and had decided to cool off.

Picture from "Play in New Braunfels". There were FAR more people than this.

Of the five of us, three (including me) were first-time tubers, so we made a few very basic mistakes. Although we did manage to snag a parking spot right next to the river (for FREE!) at the tubing place we went to, we quickly ran aground when our cooler was inspected and found to contain... disposables. 

You see, dear reader, New Braunfels' Comal River has a No-Can rule, where nothing disposable is allowed on the river, and if caught, a $150 fine per item is incurred. When my pathetic attempt to crack "well technically, aren't we all disposable?" failed to illicit even a lifted eyebrow from our kind friend/handler of the tubes, we meekly overpaid for a reusable 40oz water bottle in which to deposit our liquids. Later on, when noticing the revelers on all sides of us did indeed have cans, we felt a mite disgruntled - that is, until halfway down the river, the police and park rangers, standing on either side of the river, flagged down all of our less cautious companions.

My favorite parts were certainly the two "Tube Chutes": which is referred to as a water slide with rushing water and whitewater rapids. While this may be a little overdramatic, it was certainly a rush, especially when entering the rapids backwards.

The rivers that make New Braunfels well-known as a summer hot spot in Texas also have some history behind them. The Comal River runs entirely within the city limits and is actually a tributary of the Guadalupe River. The first written record of the Guadalupe was made in 1689, where Alonso de Leon named it Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe). The river was renamed by Domingo Terán de los Ríos to the San Augustin, but the original persisted, albeit in shortened form. However, evidence of human inhabitance over thousands of years has been noted, particularly by the Karankawa, Tonkawa, and Huaco peoples.

While there are several sad stories about the river sweeping away people, some to never be found again, we save those and others for a later day.