Months ago, my friends and I started planning a girl’s getaway weekend. We knew we wanted to go paddle boarding and that our friend, Brandi, would come in from Las Vegas to play with us. Well, this past weekend we finally had our adventure and headed out to go “glamping” at Rebecca Creek.
Most of us are not really into actual camping anymore, but had decided that an air conditioned tent with actual beds would work for us, but when we arrived, there was nothing glamorous about our tent. The AC was working, but only cooled an area about two feet directly in front of it, and there was only one bed, two Army cots, and a small pullout couch – ha ha! It had to be about 100 degrees in that tent, but we made the best of things. Each of us had brought something to share for dinner, we had our picnic and had fun talking.
Oh, and at first we thought that our only facilities were the port-a-potty across from our tent, which was not encouraging, but luckily we did find a bath/shower house with actual running water at a different part of the campground. Hallelujah.
After hanging out and having dinner, we decided to check out the water situation. Sadly, Rebecca Creek was totally dry, and so instead of being able to get to the water just steps from our tent, we had to drive a few minutes away to the Guadalupe River. It was crazy to see how low the water level is compared to where it used to be. Just look at the water line on those trees!
Luckily, we found a great place to enter the river, and so we were all set for paddle boarding on Saturday. While we were checking things out, a few of the ladies went out in the river for a swim. I was content to wait until the next day though, since I am not a huge fan of actually swimming in water that I can’t see into.
When we got back to the tent, since the outside temps had cooled a bit, the tent was a bit more bearable. then we had the mini-cheesecakes that I had made for dessert, before we all went in search of the bath house to get ready for bed. (Funnily enough, the bath house felt like a sauna, and so the clean garments and pjs I put on were soaked with sweat by the time I had taken out my contacts and brushed my teeth. Ha ha. Good times.
Things cooled off enough while we were sleeping, that I even grabbed my towel and used it as a blanket in the night, since Erica and I chose to sleep on top of the blankets on the bed, since we were still pretty hot when we went to bed.
Unfortunately, I didn’t fall asleep until around 2 am, because for some strange reason I had terrible insomnia. Luckily, the rest of the ladies seemed to sleep really well. When I got up to go to the bathroom in the morning, I discovered that the entire tent was crawling with ants. Like everywhere. And in some of my friends’ bags – so awful! They had come in through the vent for the air conditioner, and some of them even made it into the cooler!! Crazy. It definitely solidified our plans to only stay one night instead of two. Good times ;).
After we all got up and got ready for the river, I ended up braiding everyone’s hair. First it was Brandy, and then Jana, then Erica, and Shenai (the only person I didn’t braid hair for was Karen). It was so much fun, and reminded me of when I was a student in Israel and used to move from place to place braiding girls’ air on the bus during our field trips. And then Brandi offered to braid my hair, which was so fun. Nobody ever plays with my hair anymore. After our impromptu salon session, we were finally ready to hit the river.
The hardest part, the then a few malfunctions with some of our pumps, was getting the SUPs down the hill to the river, but once we got started, we were golden. We essentially had the river to ourselves, other than a couple random jet skiers we saw once.
We ended up staying on the river for about four hours, because twice we found a great place to beach our boards and cool off in the water. It was a blast! (I may have forgotten to reapply sunscreen to my back and legs, and have the sunburn to prove it, but part of me didn’t realize how much time had passed, and part of me just forgot when I reapplied it to my face and neck. Oops.)
And excuse the completely unflattering pictures, but I had to show evidence that I actually stood up to paddle board on more than one occasion, and once for a ten minute stretch. Go me!! And good job to Shenai for actually getting picture evidence, since taking pictures of moving things with your phone in a water case is not at all easy.
After we finished our time on the river, we got our stuff from the tent (which was once again about 100 degrees) packed up and headed out to a late lunch/early dinner at this great restaurant in Spring Branch called The Branch. We all drank so much water, since we had completely gotten dehydrated out on the river – we had not planned for four hours – ha ha. The food was so good, the company was amazing, and the AC felt heavenly.
The weekend was definitely an adventure, but it was so much fun – in spite of all the craziness and ants. I am so grateful for these amazing ladies and that I get to call them friends. No one else could have made it more fun. And we will have to do it again next year – just this time, no more ants ;).
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