McKinney Roughs Colorado River Rafting

Today, Pamela and I headed for McKinney Roughs park to go river rafting. We met up with some of our 4-H group. The park is about 30-something miles away. I left my house at 8:30 am, and arrived at the park at 9:20 am --- not bad for Austin rushhour traffic!
With time to kill, we went into the visitor center and looked at their aquariums.

A bus arrived to transport us to the river. It was a nice bumpy ride.
Several river guides explained to us water safety, how to wear our lifejackets properly and to talk a little about the Colorado river. My first question was in reference to the drought we had been experiencing, as the river didn't look like it had dropped any.

It was explained that due to dams, the river maintained a steady height and the energy (from the dams) is what kept Austin's power going.

If there was flooding, the water would rise as high as 3/4th the height of the trees we were standing under. This made me think of the flooding that is happening right now in other parts of the country. Makes me very thankful for the dams in the area.

The route we would be rafting, would be past the dams--- so it was a straight shot from there to Matagorda to where the Colorado feeds into the gulf of Mexico. (Matagorda is an interesting small fishing town with shrimp boats lining the Colorado river. The last time we were there, people were fishing and catching sharks.)

We rafted for 5.5 miles and the bus met us at the end of our trip.

I went ahead and uploaded all the pictures I had. I used a water-proof disposable camera and took the film to 1-hour photo after we completed the rafting. I'm sharing these photo's with some 4-H families who didn't bring a camera and needed these for their record books --- so, I'm adding all I have.

We sure had fun, didn't we?!

We goofed off quite a bit, splashed one another, and played bumper boats. Several times the kids slipped off the raft. Pamela fell in twice. Our river guides were easy going (since the parents tagged along) and allowed the kids to swim and drift down stream.


It was a breezy 99 degrees. What a beautiful cloudy day!






I didn't swim, but I was comfortably soaking wet - due to all the fun and splashing! I'm just thankful I didn't get whopped in the head with somebody's paddle. Wrapping up after a full morning! I was shocked to see it was only noon. Talk about a FULL DAY!

As usual (my family's tradition) Pamela and I spied the famous pecan store up ahead. They have one of the largest neon signs I've ever seen - advertising - CHOCOLATES - PECANS - PEACHES - etc.

Yum, yum... Pamela and I picked out the combo package of white chocolate pecans, milk chocolate pecans and cinnamon sugar pecans! (In fact, I hear somebody munching on them right now.) Save me some!

Afterwards, we spied a McDonalds up ahead and had our breakfast and lunch!

This wasn't here the last we visited -- a pecan vending machine for those who are jonesing after hours.

Fun fun! See ya on the next adventure!