At The River Bottom

Spring break is a wonderful time of the year to go vacationing, especially, if it means getting away from Baytown, school, and work. It is always a good time to visit our “river house” a home away from home where our best memories are created; we spend time together relaxing on the beach, swimming, four wheeling, fishing, and least appealing of all we tediously clean up our yard and the camp house, after all we must maintain the property because we only spend 6 months out of the year over there. We usually plan our schedule ahead of time taking off from work and social events so that we can spend time together doing things we love and doing the arduous chores, and all this in quiet tranquility. Our vacation destination is located in Tarkington, Texas and is off a main road that I will keep secret, but I will say that it leads off into a paved road that leads to an unpaved road that takes you deep down into the river bottom where our house is located perched on stilts.

Every time we enter into the river bottom the unpaved roads are likely to be rough, muddy and full of water, but of course I failed to take a picture of the muddy roads we came across. The only way you can enter in to the river is by four wheel drive and having some general knowledge of how not to get stuck. The roads are made of sand, full of sediments like rock, gravel, silt and the occasional cement block. By the way the cement block should always be avoided unless you want to be stranded! Anyways as you go straight through the road all the way down the winding bumpy roads and maybe past three or so left turns you will make it down to our house. Before getting there you must stop at the river’s edge a cliff where you can take and should take pictures of the old Trinity River especially if it’s your first time. I don’t know if many think it’s beautiful but we think it is, or at least where it is located! You’ll be greeted by the panoramic view of the green tinted river and the white beach that boarders its edge. I always get the occasional there’s a beach there, huh? But really there is a beach that I dare say is superior to Galveston’s nasty seaweed, bacteria infested waters, unless you like that, but anything is better than that!

At this time of the year we saw many Wisteria Vines a native species of Texas; I must say they were absolutely beautiful. The vines are lilac purple with oblong cascading flowers that dangle like a pendent chandelier. The picture I took was of the vines along the road before reaching our house. We or in other words, my sister, cousin and I like to do a little nature exploring, so when we arrived we set off towards the beach, like we always do, we walked to the sand bar, kicked off our shoes and walked along the water. While walking we came across all kinds of rocks and a sweet painted dainty butterfly with jet black, yellow, and sky blue wings.

After our exploration of our beach and our stroll we came back up the steep sand hill to the house. To our shock my sister’s boyfriend found a snake which I have no recollection of what it is, but it was cool! He said he had found it around our shed and killed it because it was dangerous. He said that he was going to cook it I was like yuck! Well as night started to fall we set up a bonfire and he threw the snake on the camp grill which I was disgusted, but he did cook it at least. So after meditating around the campfire and prodding it with more wood he took it off the fire. He say’s “it’s good try it!” I was like “I don’t know?” because I was grossed out, so I reluctantly took a bite. It tasted like chicken, I know as cliche as it sounds it did! It looked like burnt chicken too! I will say this; the thought of eating a snake is still too gross so I will not be eating it again.

The next day after breakfast we set off to the beach and took our reels, umbrellas, and packed our cooler with drinks. We road down the hill in fourth gear, if I remember clearly, and then set up our tent and chairs which were on the four wheeler. We love to fish and swim in the water and that day it was really nice and sunny. I took a look at the water and as green as it looks it was pretty and clear. We did set up some crab traps in which we lost a lot of chicken to those pesky crabs. I went out into the water and to my relief the trap I had set had one crab and it was pretty big! I remember saying I couldn't wait to eat because it did look pretty good.

Being down at the river bottom is always fun we mingle and enjoy each other’s company in the water while we swimming, laugh and just relax. The water is cool and melts your worries away. The sun was a blaze and our day was winding. My cousin came running down the beach and was scared out of his wits and said that the four wheeler had ran out of gas and that he had been walking along the beach near the cliff when he saw an alligator. I, of course skeptical, said no way! Because he’s prankster and likes to scare me, I do scare pretty easy. What we saw at the cliff was no joke it was a good size alligator and it was right their scales and all just bobbing its head in the water. We came back to the tents and showed my parents the picture that I had snapped they laughed at my cousin because they said what he was doing in the first place without checking the gas tank because by now he should know not to leave without checking it first. Anyways, they told us to get his four wheeler running and that they bet he won’t do it again as they chuckled.

Eventually, the sun was setting to low orange hue and the water became still and greener than before. It was about that time we packed up everything including our catch and went up to the house where we packed and prepared for our long haul back to Baytown. As we packed my uncle was cooking the crab and fish we caught earlier. It smelled heavenly like Spicy Cajun mix and in a couple hours or so our feast was ready; the couple of days we stayed in the sun were coming to end and we ate and enjoyed ourselves with music blasting Tejano and Country music as our fire roared and slowly whimpered to a low ember. We then walked up to our beds and shut our eyes that were tired from the sun’s rays and into a deep sleep we all went. In the morning we awoke up early packing our bags, equipment and cargo into our trucks knowing it was time to depart we said our good byes and back to reality we went.

Our trip to the river bottom is always a blast as it is quaint and not anything extravagant, but we manage to enjoy ourselves even for a little bit, but if anything we learn is that family is important and what brings us together is the bond, kinship, love, and respect for each other. I can really say that my spring break is and always is a trip to be remembered.