After 8 months of planning, we finally went, survived and returned from our annual Frio River trip. When we arrived, excitement was in the air at the prospect of how much fun we were all going to have. Between the cabin upgrade we made from last year, to the new water level from all the rain this year, our hopes were high. That is, until the storms started at 5am the next day. It poured until nearly 3pm on Friday, so we were all going a little stir crazy having to sit around when we really expected to have floated the river at least 3 times by now. The rain stopped and after we drove around to inspect the damage, we got report that the Game Warden closed the river, so we couldn’t rent any tubes (the locals adhere to the warnings).

Once the river opened up again, we rented our gear and jumped into the cold river. It was actually pretty rough and not as fun since the runoff turned the water muddy (something we’re used to living close to Galveston). Saturday proved to be a different story. The day started out and remained beautiful. We were able to float the river 3 times before we headed out to see the Frio bat cave.

I know a lot of you have seen the bats in Austin, San Marcos and even smelled them in Houston (no, really, @ Beltway 8 & Memorial Drive), but let me assure you, you haven’t seen them like this. There’s nothing like having 10 million Mexican free-tailed bats come pouring out of their cave for 3 hours about a foot over your head. It was fantastic to stand there and listen to them chirp and flap their wings and dodge the guano.

Long story short, we had a great time and can’t wait to go back. Looks like Elizabeth and I will be planning the next trip again soon!