Aquarena in San Marcos, TX, Wed May 25, 2011

[mtngal]

The Aquarena Center in San Marcos is on Spring Lake, the headwaters of the San Marcos River. Spring Lake is known for it's crystal clear water and we want to see it!
There is a plan for a glass bottom boat tour, picnic lunch, and exploring.

http://www.aquarena.txstate.edu/

So far we have me, Birdie, Vickie (yakn1), Cara, and Colleen (longdogs). Anyone else in the area?!? Karen took a rain check due to 'alligators up to her ears'!

Looking forward to a fun day......

[BarbaraRose]

Karen took a rain check due to 'alligators up to her ears'!....

What is that all about??

[BirdbyBird]

Looks like a neat area. And Barbie, Karen is in the middle of trying to sell/buy a house isn't she...that would be alligators enough for me.

[Liz]

Looks like fun. Know it will be with the company you'll be keeping. Hope you have great weather and take lots of pictures! (I like the glass-bottomed kayaks...that would be neat)

[cpatinjones]

That's is going to be a lot of fun! I sure wish I could attend. Have fun ladies and don't forget the pics.

[AlmostThere]

Wow, that's some place! Have fun!

[mtngal]

What great sports the Sistahs are here in Texas! Vickie, Birdie, and Colleen showed up in Vic's big red truck to meet me at the Aquarena on the hottest day of the year!

The Aquarena (water arena) was originally privately owned; and was operated as a 'theme' park of it's day. More on the swimming/diving pigs later.

My camera had a dead battery, so these are from my iPhone. I'm sure Birdie will be along with a better selection later!

We started our day with a tour in one of the circa 1940s glass bottom boats. Beautiful woodworking. The bottom of the lake is amazing; water is crystal clear allowing views of the springs bubbling up; turtles feeding on the bottom; and an array of fish swimming along.



This partially submerged submarine like structure housed the spectators for the underwater extravaganza. Story has that it included mermaids and the infamous swimming pigs.



We visited the old hotel that currently houses The River Center. Outstanding interpretive displays. This one demonstrates water quality.



We shifted our planned picnic inside and had a great visit getting to know our newest sister, Colleen. And then went for a walk in the wetlands along the floating board walk.



The wetlands were fascinating and I'm going to let our bird and fish, Birdie and Vickie, experts tell you about that part of our day!

I'm very happy we got to gtg here, it was so interesting, and as always, great to see the sisters!

(p.s. We hatched a plan to do the glass bottom kayak tour in November!)

[Bethers]

Thank goodness for picture taking phones, eh? I'm glad you had it with and love the pics you did get. But where's one of the sistah's?

Thanks for the tour. It's a place I'll have to add to my list to visit!

[VickieP]

Hey! I've been there before! Long time ago with my exDH. I thought I had and when you mentioned the mermaid and diving pigs, I remembered!

[Birdie]

Great pics Diana. Remember my battery went, too. But some of the shots I thought I might have gotten, I didn't, and a couple I thought wouldn't get I did.

Here are the Motley Crue.....Colleen, Diana, Vickie (Longdog2, Mtngal, Yakn1)



Okay, so I will go ahead and add one more, Vickie, Diana, Birdie and Colleen.


Vickie says this is a good climbing tree. It is a Cedar Cypress or water Cedar, or a tree of some kind.


The boat at the dock.



A turtle, forget what kind, but it isn't a red-eared slider or a snapping turtle.


This is a bass or crappie, or gar, or fish lady tell us what it is. Actually it is a bass.


Here are the springs with the water blowing out near the white tube and bubbling up thru the sandy bottom. Really, really cool.





A baby red-eared slider in the aquarium.


Here is a 3fer butt shot. Okay it is only kind of a butt shot.


On our way home, look what we saw. Basecamp Airstream by Thor.





Wonder who was out of the truck first????



We had a great time even though there were four (4) buses of unruly children (I use the term loosely) attending on an outing. We have planned not only for the glass bottom kayak trip, but we are gonna do a kayak trip a ways down the San Marcos River also. We won't do the big trip because you have to portage and all that stuff. We just want to sedately paddle down the river. We have that set for the fall, too. We have lots of things lined up for when Diana gets back to Austin in November. So you ladies need to be thinking about heading west this fall. We will get something setup on the GTG thread later. We will need some more of the TX ladies to be showing up too.

I hope I don't have this all messed up...words and pics.

[Birdie]

The springs feed into the Edward's Aquifer which is where the majority of San Antonio's water is derived. With the 100* weather today, the aquifer fell about 6". Not a good thing. However, it sprinkled here at the cg tonight. Just probably enough to make the dust and dirt on the car and rig look really bad and make it more humid tomorrow. But we are getting a cold front thru tonight. That means tomorrow it will only be 95*. Still 86* right now outside.

Okay...great trip, lots of fun. We will need more folks next time.

[bluepinecones]

Another great gtg!!!

[Liz]

The springs look like Silver Springs as seen thru their glass-bottom boats. And the Mermaids remind me of Weekie Wachee Springs near Brooksville, FL...where they still perform, but not with pigs. @VickieP...who could forget diving pigs?

No, no, no....you need to all come to FL in November for a GTG, and save the TX things until January + when I'll be there. I can't come in Nov. 'cause of those drs. you know. Sheesh.

[cpatinjones]

It seems everyone had a grand time. It is great seeing the gtg's of other sisters. Thanks for sharing!

[longdog2]

Okay, sorry for being so late with some additional photos. I was under the weather for a couple of days. It was a great trip. Birdie and I have been spending some time together and I met Vicki (aka Yakn) a few weeks ago when the four of us had coffee. First time to meet Diana (aka MtnGal).
Here we have three of the "partners in crime" before the boat trip.

This is a photo through the glass bottom of the boat. The water was crystal clear with all kinds of water plants and fish.

After the boat tour, a walk through an aquarium, and a hotel turned into a museum, we did the wetlands tour walk. There were placards with info on the birds and fish you might see. And we did see quite a few. Birdie is obviously the bird expert but we also had a fish expert with us. Vicki really knows her stuff.
Vicki told us that the fish were making nests and we started seeing "hole and hole" with one fish in each one. On the lower left of the picture you should be able to pick out the larger fish defending her turf from several other fish.
Here you can see several of the nests. The female fish scoop up the dirt at the bottom and spit it out on one side at the top to make the hole. You can see one of the larger fish at the lower left of the photo. The whole area was riddled with busy fish making nests. Didn't seem any male fish anywhere around.

Vicki and Birdie were checking out the water plants as well as the birds and fish. It was pretty warm out there in the open.

As Birdie said, we did see this neat trailer parked in one of the college parking lots as we toured around before leaving for San Antonio.

It was a great first GTG for me even though it was a day trip. We'll be doing more in the central Texas area in the future. We'll try for more notice so some of you can come along.