River Hikes

River Hikes
We celebrated Memorial Day by going behind LBJ Hospital to the waterfalls. Over there we were planning a waterfall hike which was supposed to be fabulous.
We made plans the night before, but since we left the house with bats late, we were off to a late start. We went in two different groups, with Shannon and me arriving first. We were told basic directions to get to the first waterfall.
I think Shannon and I must not be woodsy enough for the task we were about to undertake because we immediately ran into trouble and were not sure how to get across one area. We decided to retreat to the first little waterfall nearby. We swam for awhile with fish nibbling at our toes.
Finally the others showed and gave us a quick laugh as to where we were swimming as they normally go to swimming holes further up the hill. We quickly left the water and joined them.
We hiked for a little bit and they made us seem silly with how quickly they could pass the area we were struggling with. We quickly made it to another waterfall where children were enjoying a nice little swim.
After that the hike began to change. We began going completely vertical at some points. I was happy that I had a little bit of rock climbing experiences from Wyoming, otherwise I would have been at a complete loss of what to do. At some points we were climbing up vines vertically. Other times we were holding onto a tree for dear life, and during some occasions the tree we were using for support would give way and we would find ourselves skidding down the hill…hopefully to be stopped by something soft (sadly not always the case).
We kept climbing our way to four waterfalls (five including the little one we started at), taking breaks to swim at some of the swimming holes along the way. Some of the climbing was what I described, but we also got to scale boulders, hike through the river, climb directly up the waterfall and much more fun.
At one spot we stopped because we saw shrimp and tried to see how good we would be at shrimp catching. We first tried with just catching with our hands, then used a shirt, then added a towel as a net. We took the shrimp right out of the shell and ate them right in the middle of the river.
We had a great time hiking around and only had a few setbacks…. We had a few of the trees that we used for support collapse on us that caused us to fall directly down the mountain, and one time causing me to fall hard onto a rock (Which is causing me to have a hurt bum still almost a week later.
After our hike we had a delicious meal and we all were feeling so exhausted from a fun day in the sun.