The 52nd annual San Marcos River clean-up took place on March 2nd. The Houston Canoe Club participants on the usual Section 2 of the river, from Tom Goynes’ place to Scull’s Crossing, were Harmon Everett, Pharr Smith, Liz Dennis and Frank Ohrt. With Grace Arianoutsos’ group of 20 or so from Dallas, the section had plenty of volunteers.
I should begin by noting that it was a good bit colder than predicted Friday night, and this reporter made the usual mistake of trusting the weather forecast, bringing his light-weight sleeping bag, and freezing his rear end off. It did warm up quickly, though, and was a beautiful t-shirt-weather day.
The river was surprisingly clean this year. The “can ban” was not yet in effect, so I suppose it was the result of the tubing outfitters’ not being open for business yet. Everyone managed to fill a big trash bag or two anyway, but there were no entire bags full of lost sunglasses, flip-flops, etc., and no tires or household appliances. (I was tempted to get nostalgic for the bad ol’ days, when status was gained by bringing down the biggest single object.) Our group was off the river by 2:00, and had to spend the rest of the afternoon taking showers and resting up for the Saturday night barbecue dinner. The dinner was terrific, as usual, thanks to Paula Goynes, the TRPA, and a lot of volunteer cooks, servers, and cleaner-uppers.
There were several HCC members on Susan Eda’s section of the river, and one shuttle bunny, but they will have to write their own report.