Big Bend - Boomerang Kayaking

Our next adventure took us to the eastern section of Big Bend National Park to the Rio Grande Village area.  It takes about an hour to travel to the other side of the park, and the drive was filled with wild flowers.

We talked to a park ranger that told us this is the best year for wild flowers since 1984.  We feel so blessed to see this on our first trip to Big Bend!  We are truly wandering God's wonders when we revel in sights like this!

Once we got to the Rio Grande Village, we took the nature hike along the Rio Grande River.  You can see the river meandering behind Mark, and that was our destination for the afternoon.

We travel with an inflatable kayak that we have used for years in many different places.   Our plan was to put the kayak in at the boat ramp and paddle against the current several miles.  Then we would finish by floating back down river to the boat ramp.  That's called a boomerang kayak trip, because you go up-river and then return to the place you started.  We would never advise anyone to float down and then paddle up-river, because it's always best to do the hard part of the trip first. 

 We arrived at the boat ramp just as a group was finishing their trip down the river.  Their canoes were being loaded for them, and they had just floated down river.  Of course, each one of them paid $150 for this service and their four hours on the river.  Since we are living on a frugal retirement budget we try to look on the bright side; we are going to get a lot more exercise than that group did, and we will see the same things they did for free!

It was a beautiful afternoon, and the current wasn't too bad when we got started.

We had to portage the boat through some low water and some rapids four different times in our paddle up stream.  It is interesting that the southern edge of Big Bend National Park (and also the United States) is the Rio Grande River.  So getting out of the river on the south side would be an illegal entry into Mexico.  So we always walked the boat on the northern shore on the U.S. side.

At times the Mexico shore line looked much different from the U.S. side, which was interesting since they were just a few feet apart.  We decided that God did a better job "decorating" the Mexico side with its majestic dark brown cliffs and greenery on the right.

We entered a canyon, where there was no beach on either side.  So when the current got too strong or the water got too shallow, the only option was to go straight down the middle of the water.  We found that getting Mark out of his seat in the back of the boat made us buoyant enough to get us through the low water.  Mark pulled us through, and this was Denisa's view from inside the boat:





The canyon walls on both sides made for a beautiful kayak trip down the river. The water was clear and blue, so we could see the rocks under the water and navigate around them.

As we turned the boat for the float back to our put-in site, we noticed some dramatic clouds overhead.  There was also a bank of clouds closing in behind us.  We had planned on a leisurely float back to the car, but we decided instead we might have to do some paddling to speed up our trip.

It was a good decision.  We got the boat deflated and loaded into the car safely.  We drove up to the Boquilla Canyon view point in time to watch the rain storm coming down the river.  It was so obvious because there was also pea-sized hail in the storm.  We were certainly glad to be in the car watching this storm instead of in the boat on the river!

After the storm blew over, we made our last stop of the day at the hot springs along the river.  We didn't take pictures of the people in their bathing suits soaking in the 105 degree water.  But we did take a picture of the old grove of palm trees near the springs.  It is so strange to see palm trees in the desert here!  As you can tell from the way they dwarf Denisa, these trees are large and have been here for a while.

We didn't get back to the motorhome until close to 9 p.m. and we were certainly glad we had a crock pot of corned beef, potatoes, carrots, and cabbage waiting for us.  Happy St. Patrick's Day to us!