Ride to Natural Bridge Caverns

On Saturday morning, August 20, 2011, I decided to join some other members of the local H.O.G. (Harley Owner's Group) Chapter on a ride to the Natural Bridge Caverns in New Braunfels. Although I felt a little guilty taking off for a pleasurable day of motorcycle riding, Sharon was going to spend most of the day...actually weekend...getting ready for her August Institute on Monday so the only thing I would really be missing would be honey-do's at the house.

The ride was scheduled to leave one of the local McDonald's in Bryan at 0830 and not return until around 7pm that evening. Seemed like a long time to me but I was game. I arrived a little early, ate some yummy oatmeal...doesn't cause my stomach to rebell like other breakfast items there...and socialized with those riders already there.

As it turned out, the heat...and probably the length of the ride...caused most of the would-be riders to skip this ride...we only had 5 bikes...6 total people for the ride. At precisely 0830, the Road Captain for the day led the group out of the parking lot, headed towards Caldwell to the west of Bryan/College Station.

The plan was to make multiple stops for water and rest, due to the excessive heat expected on Saturday. In fact, we made a stop about every 45 minutes - 1 hour...which seemed excessive early in the day but came as a welcome relief later. The temperature was not as bad as the days prior...only got up to 102 or so...but was bad enough for folks wearing jeans and sitting on top of a heat-producing combustible engine.

Our first stop seemed to come pretty soon after leaving home, but everyone let the leader choose times and places and I didn't hear any complaints from anyone...all day in fact.

We headed out Highway 21 through Caldwell to a nice station just out of town on the west side. Everyone made stops to the little boy's room...and the little girl's room...drank some water and then we got back on the bikes and continued down Highway 21 to the next stop.

Our next stop was just west of Bastrop where Highway 21 crosses Highway 71. Again, we had some water, took a couple of pictures and resumed our trek down 21 towards San Marcos. The plan was to take a path around San Marcos to avoid all the traffic in town where Highway 21 joins Interstate 35. At the junction of 21 and 80, where one would normally turn right towards the city and I-35, we turned left and headed east, seemingly in the opposite direction of our destination.

A few miles up the road, we exited Highway 80 on to The Old Bastrop Highway...a very narrow two-lane road with a speed limit of 30. As we passed a sign warning of road closures due to high water, I wondered where we were headed. About a mile down the road, we passed the gates that were used to close the road and came to a stop sign...which seemed a bit strange since there were no crossing roadways. As it turned out, the stop sign was to allow vehicles on one side of a very narrow one-lane bridge to see any oncoming vehicles on the other side. The bridge was just a few inches above the level of a branch of the Comal River and one could easily see how it could overflow the bridge with just a little rain in the area.

As we crossed, we noticed some kids playing fetch with their dog in the river...looked like the dog was having a great time. Although Brazos County...and most of the counties in the State...is experiencing drought conditions, the Comal River was not showing any signs of drought.

As we skirted the eastern edge of San Marcos, our leader took us over several farm-to-market roads, crossed under I-35 and eventually ended up on FM , which we followed, basically parallel to the interstate, into San Marcos...or New Braufels or Greune...who knows for sure in that area...until we came to a Rudy's...our lunch stop.

We all had a nice lunch and refreshed ourselves before making the last few miles to our destination for the day...The Natural Bridge Caverns.

We arrived at our destination about 1330 (1:30pm for you non-military types), paid our entry fee and sat down for a few minutes to await our departure time. About 15 minutes later...just enough time to buy a drink or something in the gift shop...our tour was called to assemble on the patio...which we did. The total group numbered about 30 people...including several toddlers and babies that were already crying.

After a short introduction by our tour guide...a cute college coed from Texas State nearby...we started down to the cave's entrance...which just happens to be directly beneath the place's namesake...the natural bridge. This "bridge" was caused by a huge sinkhole, thousands of years ago...that left this piece of limestone looking like a bridge over the sinkhole.

Just a short history of the caverns for those who do know it. The caverns sat on private land and was fairly well known among the local farmers as early as 1900, but it wasn't until 1960 that four St. Mary's University students asked the landowner for permission to explore. Luckily, the owner granted them four visits to the caverns...which they made the most of. What they discovered was underground passageways, two large "rooms" and other interesting things common to such caverns.

In 1964, the caverns and land was declared "public land" by then Governor John Connally and the park began operations. Today visitors can walk on asphalt walkways down to about 200 feet below the surface and see one of nature's amazing sights. Our guide said that it takes about 100 years for water to seep into the cave, become an acid solution and turn into about 100 cubic inches...about the size of an ice cube...of stalactite or stalagmite.

The reason she told this little tidbit...and the reason she kept telling us to keep our hands off the rocks, sides of the cave or anything except the handrails...was that just by touching, our body oils would kill any further growth in the stalactites and stalgamites...we would kill something that has taken millions of years to grow...pretty heavy, right?

Throughout the caves, one can see remnants of one of the inhabitants long ago...bats. In several places, there is evidence of their roosting on the ceiling as well as their droppings...that turned the floor and/or rocks a little brown...go figure. The only other inhabitants that the original adventurers found were wolves and a family of raccoons. Can you imagine how these guys must have felt when they came upon a family of angry raccoons 200 feet below the surface of the earth while crawling around in the dark? Probably not a pleasant feeling.

As we got ready to depart the tour area, our guide pointed out a green light off in the distance which she said was the beginning of another 1/2 mile of unimproved passageway that we could explore...for another $20. Well, maybe another day. I was ready to get to the surface where the 100+ weather might feel cooler than the cave. Can you believe that 70 degrees would feel miserable? Perhaps it was the 99% humidity and no breeze of any kind.

We were back on our motorcycles headed for home by 1500 (3pm). It took us over 4 hours but we rarely even saw a major highway, much less rode on one. Our return ride took us through some towns I had heard of...Bastrop, Lockhart, Smithville and Giddings...and some I had never heard of...Geronimo, Fentress and Rosanky. I saw several smaller state highways and farm-to-market roads...FM3009, FM1863, SH46, FM738, SH133, FM20, FM713, SH304, FM535, SH95 and several others I can't remember. We crossed 4 Texas rivers...Comal, Guadalupe, Colorado and Brazos...and several creeks...such as Aligator Creek and Dry Comal Creek.

Overall, it was a good ride and no one got too hot or tired...however, it sure felt good to get in the shower after getting home. The next scheduled ride with the group is a trek to the Hill Country and the Koyote Ranch...ought to be interesting.

By the way, pictures of the inside of the caverns are lacking due to the fact that my batteries died the moment we entered the first cave...wonder if something in the rock killed them.