Family Fun on the San Marcos River

Last weekend we took Gavin on his first river trip. He's been on short kayaking trips on Town Lake, the Rollingwood put-in to the Redbud Peninsula, and from the put-in to Barton Springs. The last couple of times on Town Lake he expressed boredom, because there weren't really any places he could swim. We decided he was ready to tackle an all day (3-4 hours) river trip. The San Marcos river is clean and there are several excellent swimming holes.

We met our friends the Enders early on Saturday morning, armed with river snacks and cold beverages, strapped the kayaks to the roof of our adventure mobile, and headed to Sewell Park (a favorite swimming hole) to begin our journey.

Gavin's swimming has come a long way this summer. He hasn't taken formal lessons yet, but is catching on with the help of his parents and friends. Once we were in the water Gavin immediately took to wanting to swim unassisted. Always asking about when we were stopping at the next swimming hole along the way. A river rat in the making. 

The Enders are great with the littles. Very patient, quick with the witty comebacks (necessary with the 4 year olds) and always ready to share interesting facts about our local waterways and wildlife, as well as the fun stuff like how to float on your back in the river or skip rocks. At the end of our trip Gavin was ready to stay with the Enders. 

It was a great trip and we're looking forward to more family adventures on the river. 

Gavin wanted to ride on the top of the car with the kayaks.

Peaceful place.

Casey and Gavin. 

Our paddles are still too heavy for Gavin to use, but he found a tree branch floating in the river
and decided to make his own paddle. He was very proud of himself.
We're going to start looking for his own Gavin-size paddle.

An Aeromotor windmill. 

Mr. Mark teaching Gavin his rock skipping technique.

Gavin loved that he was able to swim in the river.
He asked if he could hold on to the side of the kayak while we paddled. He had a blast.

Side note: this post was completed entirely on my iPhone, from the photography to the blogging. Kind of cool. So far I like Blogger app, but have found a couple of flaws: 1) I can't add photo captions 3) and I can't add hyper links. To do these things I need to revisit editing on a computer. Doesn't dissuade me to use Blogger app, but there is definitely room for improvement.