This Labor Day weekend I had the opportunity to travel with a student organization to New Braunfels, Texas, which is a little further south than Austin. We spent the first night in a church gym, and then woke up early the next morning to float in inner tubes down a portion of the Comal River. I had done this trip once before and was aware that unfortunately this was not the most natural setting in which one could tube. Even our entry point blockaded the almost still river with cement walls and had installed a ladder by which we could enter.

I am in the middle of the back row with a TCU hat on. Unfortunately I did not get a photo while on the water due to my lack of  a waterproof phone case. 

As we began to float, I noticed that almost every square inch of bank had been cemented and walled, and therefore the trees, grass, and soil associated with a river bank could not be found unless some remained behind this wall. My initial thought was that this was a preventative measure for flooding, which the houses seem to corroborate, seeing as most of the riverside properties were on stilts like those at the beach. In addition to the bank being essentially nonexistent, it seemed that this portion of the river had been "lotted off", and because of this there was developed real estate our entire two-hour float on both sides of the river.

I remember my first time going on this trip, on the same weekend the previous year, being shocked to see how unnatural this river was. In order to lure more tourists, riverside homes, rentals, and apartments had been built, and at one point we even passed Schlitterbahn, the massive waterpark, which was fenced off with chain link about 15 yards away from where I floated at one point.

Not only were the surroundings manmade, but portions of the river had been tampered with to provide a more "exhilarating" float. I have never once expected to be thrilled in an inflatable tube for a float trip... for me part of the beauty is being almost completely still and soaking in the nature surrounding you. Unfortunately businesses seemed to think otherwise, and therefore the city had built concrete chutes into the river, possibly to compete with the water rides at Schlitterbahn. These ugly structures funneled people into a small segment of the river and shot them around a curve into generated, manmade rapids. To say I was disappointed when I saw this would be an understatement.

I grew up traveling, swimming, and canoeing in rivers in Tennessee. Although many of the outfitters and rental spots are eyesores, most of the time the water and its immediate surroundings are fairly untouched. I thought that the Comal would be similar, but I was rudely awakened seeing how much a city was willing to alter its natural resource to attract tourists. The one thing I will say that this river was doing better than any other I have ever seen was river clean up. There were lifeguards and park rangers patrolling and picking up trash. Not once did I float by a piece of garbage. Not. Once.

Now if only we could combine the serenity and wilderness of the Tennessee rivers I grew up on with the cleanliness of the Comal, I would have found my new natural escape.