Achy Kayak Shoulders

We are at Lake Amistad National Recreation Area in Del Rio, Texas, in what's called the south Texas brush country.  Lake Amistad came into being in 1969 when a dam was built across the Rio Grande. The huge reservoir is in both the US and Mexico and is the third largest international lake in the world, per the visitor center's film -- although that seems hard to believe considering the Great Lakes.  But Lake Amistad is big, with lots of inlets.

Del Rio is also one of those places where there is no Verizon coverage, so I'm writing and posting this courtesy of the free WiFi at the Del Rio McDonalds. Next time we get Internet coverage, I'll post some Amistad photos.

Before we left Austin, however, Jim wanted to add Lady Bird Lake to our list of places paddled. Lady Bird Lake is actually a reservoir on Texas's Colorado River (not to be confused with the Colorado River that created the Grand Canyon) which flows 862 miles from Lubbock to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Other than when we kayaked on a very choppy Lake Superior last summer (me for about 20 minutes before I yelled "Uncle"), it was the windiest time we've spent on kayaks.  And because the trip towards downtown was with the wind, we paddled against the wind coming back.

That return trip was a killer.

If we stopped paddling at all, we immediately drifted backwards. So there was no looking at the scenery -- just paddle, paddle, paddle.  At one point Jim said "Are you singing?"  No, I was counting strokes out loud, which helps me concentrate. 

Still fun though. 

Downtown Austin, Texas, as seen from Jim's kayak. Wikipedia says Texas' Colorado River is the longest river in the US to have both its source and it's mouth in one state.

A small heron let us glide right by him.  At first I thought it was a super huge kingfisher, but then he stretched out his long heron neck.  To the left of the heron is a grackle.  Herons usually spook pretty easily, so maybe it was ill, poor baby. Or depressed because he was near a noisy grackle.

No, these are not heron eggs found along the river. Jim's friend from his days at Intel Corp., Pam, and her husband Bart, raise chickens and gave us fresh eggs when we visited them Saturday. I boiled three and made great egg salad sandwiches.  The eggs were big, had pale green shells and the brightest yellow yolks I've ever seen.