After my sojourn at Big Bend Ranch, I returned to Terlingua, and booked a seat on a one-day canoe outing into Santa Elena Canyon with a local outfitter. Normally they prefer to offer rafting trips, which can cover the entire canyon in one day. However, since the Rio Grande's water levels are low, they can only use canoes, and even at that we sometimes scraped bottom...
The outing included three guides and about 20 clients, including a school group from Beeville, Texas. I was paired with one of the guides, a 20-something woman who seemed to like the outdoors as much as I do.
We put in at the lower mouth of the canyon, and then paddled upstream for the morning. We stopped fairly regularly, as (to be expected) the skill levels of the participants varied considerably. I've done some canoeing before.
Eventually we got to a side canyon called Fern Canyon, where we stopped for lunch (essentially a sandwich buffet). After a nice pause, in which some of the kids (and some of their teachers) decided to dive into the river, we headed back downstream, at a slightly faster pace...
Upon return to home base, I immediately took off for Alpine, Texas, where I found refuge at the Holland Hotel, which includes the wonderful Edelweiss Brewery and Restaurant. The beer was good, the veggie burger was pretty much what there was for me to eat.
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