With my mom in town for a few days (a rare treat) we took a trip to New Braunfels for a float.  She'd never floated the river, and with temps over 100 and high humidity it was just what I needed to escape the heat.

It had been six or seven years since my last trip down the river, and I'd never floated the Comal River, the world's shortest river.  I've done the Blanco River and, of course, the Guadalupe.  The Comal has its ups and downs when rating it against the other rivers in the New Braunfels area.

While the Guadalupe is the first river many people think when they think of tubing in south-central Texas, there are several rivers with many different operators offering tubes.  After a quick Google search as we were getting on I-35 we decided to go with Texas Tubes down the Comal.

Photo by Linda Garrett
Photo by Linda Garrett
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The Comal River is actually the water source for Schlitterbahn, which means all that chilly water is the same water we floated down for three hours this past Friday.  I'm not saying that should concern you as a Schlitterbahn ticket holder, but I saw hundreds of people drinking copious amounts of alcohol.  Not one of them left the river for a restroom break.  So there's that to think about the next time you hit the lazy river at Schlitterbahn.

My favorite part of the whole day was the man-made water slide.  Due to a drop in the river, and the resulting waterfall, the city has built a water "chute" that you can go down to get to the lower level.  It was so much fun that I dragged my fat butt back up to the top to do it a 2nd time.

Once we hit the bottom of the chute, things got hairy.  This is a natural river, after all.  It's not a controlled environment, and mother nature doesn't care about tubers.  One member of our party was tossed off his tube and had to struggle to stay above the water as the water from the chute combined with the rushing water of the waterfall to create a whirlpool that could potentially be dangerous.

Again, it didn't stop me from a 2nd trip down the chute, but it's something for you to remember should you ever hit the Comal River.  Personally, I'd do it again.  Several members of our party wanted to do it again RIGHT THEN, but to risk a sunburn with another three hours on the water wasn't what I wanted to happen.

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