This past weekend we hit the Guadalupe. Loads of fun, but exhausting… I think I’m getting old.

Evan and Shadel came up on Friday night (with Ella!), and we had a few old friends over for dinner. There were 12 people at the house: Allan, Brandi, Janeen & Alfonso, Josh & Elise, Evan & Shadel, Marc & Cyndi (and Rowan), Christine and myself. It’s the first real gathering of friends we’ve had in the new house, mainly because the house wasn’t ready (and still isn’t) to have people over. We still haven’t painted most of the rooms or gotten things where we want them to be decorating-wise.

I grilled corn-on-the-cob and steaks. Josh made his famous sweet+russet mashed potatoes. They all turned out pretty well. The conversations centered around high-school and what we’ve all done since high-school.

The next day, we got up and headed to the Guadalupe River. It was a gorgeous Saturday, and I personally haven’t floated the river since last summer, so I was looking forward to it. Christine and Shadel stayed home to take care of Ella while Evan and I headed over to Allan’s to collect him, then to Josh and Elise’s to collect them, before making the 45 minute drive to New Braunfels with 5 adults in my Jetta. We stopped long enough to pick up Brad, Carlo, Erin and her friend Phil and Toni.

We met Janeen, Alfonso, Brandi, Adrian and Alex (Alfonso’s cousin) at The Shanty (in Canyon Lake, TC), got our tubes, and walked to the river (Next time we’re going to Rockin’ R again). Adrian hooked us up with cheaper tube prices so the walk was worth it, but the walk from The Shanty to the river wouldn’t normally… Where we usually put in, you don’t have to pay for the extra tubes for your coolers, and there are more people there.

So, on the river, much beer was consumed, much conversation was had, and we ran into a bunch of people. I managed to get caught up in a tree root system once and had to work my way out of it. I came out relatively unscathed.

We had two water-proof disposable cameras, and took a few pictures of the events of the day.

When it was time to get out of the river, we all stopped, except for Josh, Alfonso, Janeen and Evan… they floated about 30 minutes further down-river and had to trek their way back up to where we were.

After loading up the tubes on the bus, and turning them in, we headed over to the Clear Springs Cafe in Leon Valley (might as well have been New Braunfels to me). Good catfish. Really good catfish (then I wonder if being super dehydrated and hungry as hell didn’t have something to do with my opinion.

After dinner we said our good-byes and drove back to Austin.

On Sunday, I awoke to discover I had a helluva sunburn on my tummy and upper thighs. Gotta love the river!

note: Josh posted his version of the events, and a few pictures from Friday night on his website.

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