| The
rain clouds looming on the horizon did, in fact materialize
into record-setting rain and floods, but not before road
tripper Aaron Reed had
a chance to look for wallabies and go kayaking on an ancient
canal in western Texas. No canned mutton, though... |
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Sky
and water reflect the peacefulness of a paddle
down the San Saba in summer. |
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An
Eastern swallowtail (left) and a Pipevine swallowtail
butterfly "mudpuddle" on the banks of
the San Saba River. Mudpuddling is a behavior
by which some butterflies gather minerals they
will need to help them reproduce. |
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Wildflowers
abound along the San Saba, including these photogenic
bluebells |
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We promised to take Tamara's friends Ann and
Derek paddling way back in March, before the rains, before
the rivers rose and raged all across Texas.
By early summer, the showers are sporadic. River
levels on the San Saba near Menard
look good, though. In fact, the spring-fed river west of town
stays floatable all year long.
We don't know it yet, but the rain looming on
the horizon as we drive west on U.S. Highway 290 from Austin
will stretch well into July, setting one-day rainfall records
again and again.
Just a few miles outside of Austin, the limestone
hills begin to rise around us. After a jink north, Highway
290 takes us west again through Johnson City and into Fredericksburg.
Settled primarily by Germans in the mid-18th century, Fredericksburg
retains a significant bit of its European heritage, including
lovely streetside biergartens and the Vereins Kirche, the
community church built in 1847.
From Fredericksburg we continue west on Highway
290 to the little town of Harper. Just beyond Harper, a right
on Ranch-to-Market Road 385 and a left down a graveled county
road take us to Ann and Derek's 25-acre artists'
retreat in the hills.
I'm on the lookout for wallabies. A few weeks
earlier, Derek walked down to the county road to check the
mail and was stunned to find one of the diminutive kangaroos
lounging next to the mailbox.
Longhorns: check. Emus: check. Llamas: check.
But wallabies, this day, are proving elusive.
Ann is suffering from a summer cold and begs
off. Derek grabs his towel and a couple of bottles of homebrew,
and off we go. I had thought to retrace our route to Highway
290, jump on Interstate Highway 10 for a few miles to Junction,
and then head north on U.S. Highway 83 to Menard.
Derek suggests we continue north on Ranch-to-Market
Road 385, up to London. Almost as soon as we get back to the
hardtop we top a rise and there, spread out below us, is a
magnificent vista of small farms and ranches and blue-shrouded
hills folding in to the Llano River Valley.
At the London crossing of the river, we notice
that water is flowing over the road. Just a few inches, and
it is, after all, a low-water crossing. We drive on and just
before London merge onto U.S. Highway 377.
Highway 377 takes us to another Ranch-to-Market
road, this one numbered 1121, and we follow that to State
Highway 29 west into Menard.
Continued
on page 2>
