This is where I'm supposed to tell you how I'm a lifelong hunter and a hog trapper and a pretty good cowboy.

Well, I am. But that's not important, but the fact that I had recently gone through a divorce,

and our son and two foster sons are all grown up is a little more relevant because that is what got

me in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Having never had an empty nest before I got what the Canadians call a cabin fever.

Suddenly I had extra time and extra money and I swear I didn't know

what to do with myself. I needed a new hobby or three and I ended up following a

young fellow from East Texas that likes to take long kayak trips on these beautiful hillcountry rivers and pitch a tent or string a hammock between two trees on a sandbar.

He and his buddies all used GoPro

and they fill their weekends and memory cards with adventure. They do a fine job

of editing their content after each trip and I figured that I would do the same.

I bought a good fishing kayak and a three-man tent.

It was designed for Alpine hikers and it weighs almost nothing.

Now hit the lower at Guadalupe, figuring a night or two on a sandbar eating fresh fish

would teach me what else I might want out of life or better yet what I didn't want.

While kayaking rapids, less weight is the goal so you don't want to get top-heavy and find

yourself upside down.

It was still a little early in the spring of 2021, so the water was cold.

But the good news was that I had the entire hill country to myself. Well that's how it seemed at the time anyway.

The first day was a blast. I covered a lot of miles and I camped on some private owned campground.

It was deserted all the way down to the river, but on the other side of this parcel, which

is a couple of hundred acres, I could see some fancy fifth-wheel campers with more pullouts than you can

...