A rough day at Rough Canyon, or Does This Look Broken?
The day was hot – hot like only central Texas can be in mid-August. The kind of hot that would burn an egg on the sidewalk. Waves of heat radiated off the asphalt road. We were headed to Rough Canyon at Lake Amistad for the day, pulling a boat behind us. It’s a long drive from north Hill Country to Lake Amistad, a long barren drive through miles of nothing, punctuated by the rare intersection named as if it’s an entire town.
It was in the middle of this long stretch of nothing, the kind of nothing where cell phone signals are non-existent, that we got a flat tire. Because, you know, that’s where stuff happens – in the middle of nowhere with no cell signal.
Parked off to the side of the road, an area covered in fire ant hills (for you non-Texans and non-southwesterners, those are aggressive red ants that leave a burning bite) my friend fixed the flat with the help of a roadside mowing crew that I flagged down. (Because your tax dollars are hard at work, mowing the sides of roads in the middle of NOWHERE.) They didn’t speak English, and my limited Spanish wasn’t much help, but we all used hand signals. (All joking aside, I’d like to add that country Texans and native Mexicans are some of the kindest folks, always ready to lend a hand to someone in need.)
After numerous fire ant bites (on everyone), a nasty gash on a finger or two (not mine), and a string of cuss words (also not mine), we were back on our way to Lake Amistad. Like the weather, the truck was running hot for most of the trip but we finally made it to…
Rough Canyon at Lake Amistad
It’s a BIG lake… this picture doesn’t do it justice, but it’s the only long-shot I took.
The following is a slide show of the high cliffs and caves. Native Americans once lived in these caves.
But the best part was the blue water. It looks like something out of the Caribbean!
Beautiful blue water! (The colors are off in the photo. Just picture the Caribbean and you’ll get the idea.)
The clear blue water was warm and shallow… and filled with the occasional, invisible hole in the flat rock bed. I found one of those invisible holes shortly after stepping out of the boat, walking through the warm, shallow pools of turquoise blue water. And this happened. (Don’t look if you’re squeamish.)
It was so hard to walk on it! I hobbled along the rest of the day, but that toe throbbed!!
But this kept me going…