A while back we California transplants had been looking for a fun day trip or weekend excursion. I may embellish a bit but one of our adventures went sort of like this: My neighbor, the Texas angel, gave us a solid recommendation on an outing. “Y’all might go tubin’.” For those of you who don’t know what tubin’ in Texas is about – tubin’ (also tubing, toobin’) is the act of sitting in a tire inner tube and floating down a river for several hours with a couple of beers. “Y’all can try the Comal or the Guadalupe down by New Braunfels. The Frio is real nice but it’s all the way by San Antonio. Not sure y’all want to drive that far. Really it depends on which has the best water runnin’.”

I had to admit to the Texas angel that I had never been tubin’. She promised me it would be the most fun I would ever have. On the outset it didn’t sound very complicated and seemed like fun. I started doing some research and tried to figure out who had the best conditions. I looked at several water flow sites and got tons of hourly river data from the USGS. “Well it says the Comal is running at 295 as of one hour ago.” My husband looked at me. “Is that good?” I looked at the various sites I found. “I am not sure.” “Maybe you just need to call one of the tube outfitter places and ask.” I turned up my nose. I hate doing that. I want to just find the information I want without talking to someone on a phone. Every site I clicked sent me to another site full of data and conflicting info on what was optimal water flow. I clicked a few more times. Finally my husband just picked up the phone. “Yes, good morning. Um my wife and I are considering going tubing this weekend and are wondering what the conditions are like.” I could hear the woman’s voice on the other end. My husband was nodding his head and saying uh huh for a long while. “Ok, so does that mean the river is good for tubing this weekend?” There was more talking and nodding. “Uh sure I’ll make a reservation.” More talking from the outfitter. “Yes we want a tube for our cooler and yes I suppose we are both good swimmers. Thank you.”

He hung up. “Why do we need to be good swimmers?” I was getting a little concerned. “Apparently the river is running a little fast. They don’t recommend it for inexperienced swimmers. We can both swim. We’ll be fine. So the outfitter will provide tubes, pick us up at the end of the float and drive us back.”

“Wanna try a turn around?” I asked my husband. He shook his head. “Nope, it’s almost a 4 hour drive each way.” I kept poking around for a place to stay. It looked like there were a few camping options right on the river. I perked up. “We could camp!” He shook his head with a hard no. I filed that idea for another time. “There are tons of lodging options close by that have pick up service from the tube outfit…Ooh one has a gnome theme!” We finally found one we agreed on. I made a one night reservation in a local motel and found a good pack list – cooler (no Styrofoam), ice, drinks (no glass or cans), water (drinking only alcoholic drinks is a bad idea), snacks, sunscreen, water shoes, hat, sun glasses, bungee cords, ziplock bags for cash/cards. We familiarized ourselves on the river rules. We were ready to go!

We wanted to be on the river early so we left DFW at 5 am and made it there by 9am. (Of course we stopped at Buc-ee’s on the way but that is another story.) We checked into our lodge and dropped off our overnight stuff. There were a bunch of other people waiting for the outfitter bus. Before too long a beat up converted school bus pulled up. A young girl checked our names off on her clip board and welcomed us aboard with an “and you have a blessed day on the river.” My husband whispered in my ear. “Is that a good thing to say?” I responded casually. “Yes. You are probably thinking of bless-her-heart. That one is not nice.”

At the outfitter we got our wristbands and our tubes. We set up our cooler and made our way to the launching area. I have to say launching was way harder than I thought it would be. After two or three tries I managed to hoist myself into the tube while simultaneously wading into the water on slippery rocks. (By the way – by the time we were safely in the tubes with our cooler we were completely soaked which was sort of the idea being on the river… so not complaining. But take note – the only stuff that was dry was inside the zip-lock bag in the cooler. Oh and you will probably get river water in your cooler at some point. So cooler ice is probably not for putting in drinks.) Then we bunge-ed our tubes together and started our 2-3 hour float down the river.

The river was pretty crowded which was fine. The sun was hot, the water was wonderful and my beer was cold. I closed my eyes, splashed the water with my feet and relaxed. I felt pretty amazing. My husband struck up a conversation with another tuber next to him, a nice looking gentleman in a Yankees baseball cap. We are Texans now and previously from the other coast – so, go Red Sox lol. Anyway I ignored their conversation until they started talking about Water Moccasins. “So the snakes stick to the banks of the river mostly then?” I immediately pulled my feet into my tube. We were already on the river! Why would he say that?! Thankfully I went with the hard bottom tube rather than the open bottom style. The Yankees fan assured me it was very, very rare for someone to get bit, but try to stay away from the grassy banks just the same. Also, you can apparently tell a Water Moccasin from other snakes by the way they swim with their whole bodies on top of the water rather than just their heads. This was good news indeed. Now I would know when to panic. I wanted to flick this guy on the ear and then check all that info online but we did not have a smart phone with us in that zip-lock bag. The guy floated away.

My husband reached for my hand over the water. “Are you gonna be ok?” I thought about it and decided to relax. “Yeah. I survived how many years of driving the 5 fwy everyday in California, right?” He nodded and I put my feet back in the cool river water. I closed my eyes. He squeezed my hand. “You aren’t going to watch for Water Moccasins?” I shook my head. “Nah. He’s probably right. It’s probably a very rare thing to get bit. I am going to hope for the best and enjoy this ride.”

Plus I decided that the snakes around here are probably not Yankees fans. Bless his heart.