Luling, Canoes and BBQ too

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We were tipped off by those "in the know" that Luling's "Central Market" was THE... wait let me bold that, THE place in Texas to go for BBQ. Not being shy of driving two and a half hours one way for something interesting to do on a weekend, we tossed some stuff in the car and made our way West to Luling, TX. The first thing Lisa had found to do was a Canoeing trip down (which is hard to think about as the river was flowing West to East... my Pacific ocean trained body was really confused by that) the San Marcos River. It was six miles of what we were told was fairly easy river. More of a "float" than anything else. I'm going to mark this one as "challenging" and "not to be tried by people who go canoeing once every 6 years". (Us)

The big challenge here wasn't so much the speed, as you can see from the video it got really lazy, however it was kind of fast at the start. The big challenge were the massive trees that had fallen into the river and were almost everywhere. You had to figure out a way through them before you were on them. That and the river had a lot of bends so you could round a bend and be right on top of some big tree that you had to get around. Add heat and sun (And many large spiders) and it really wasn't a trip for the feint of heart. Suffice to say that I was very done by the end.

As a note as well, SPF 50 sunblock works really well for situations like this. Everywhere I applied it I am still white as can be. The places I forgot to apply it (like say, my right hand and the inside of my legs) are toasted a very nice red shade.

On our canoeing adventure we saw cows (standing in the river), a wild black pig (exciting), some very interesting variety of Kingfisher, some turtles, and lots and lots of very large spiders. (We also encountered a dead cow... a whole one, not the kind all pre-cut up and cooked (we encountered that later in the day) this one was marinading in river water. Not a smell I'd like to endure again.)

Not sure I would repeat this experience, especially matching yesterday's conditions of hot, humid and my body being really not ready to do something like this for almost 3 hours. But if it was cooler, I had sunblocked every part of my body, AND I had the endurance to last more than the first 15 minutes, I would probably give it another try.

Following the canoe adventure we made our way to the "Central Market" where we purchased ourselves some BBQ. We ended up taking it home as I was feeling kind of sick. We also picked up a massive watermelon from the farmers market and a few other fresh veg. I'm a little worried I might have lost some weight on this trip. We'll see.

BBQ Run-down: The BBQ was good, but, and I hate to say this, but Rudy's makes a better brisket. I did however really like their BBQ sauce. (Lisa didn't) It seemed like it was mustard based and it is really good. The upside to liking Rudy's BBQ better is of course there is a Rudy's within 5 - 10 minutes of us, so we don't need to drive 2.5 hours to get good BBQ.

Overall Luling seemed like it could have been an interesting place to explore (the guy who rented us the canoe was 5th generation Lulinger.) but I was just beaten after the canoe trip. We made it back before 5:30pm and we both crashed.

Last night was my 10th year HS reunion as well. I hope everyone who went had a good time. Saw some pictures on Facebook this morning. Hopefully more will trickle in in the next few days.

We are going to go waddle off to church now (I can't walk right with these burns on my legs), hope you all have a good day. I'm praying for some rain. Thanks for all the love and support!

~B.