BARF: In thanksgiving for friendship

I have returned relaxed from my annual BARF weekend on the Frio River in the Texas Hill Country.  I am blessed with the friendship of these ten wonderful guys, our wives (the wives congregate on the Frio in September for their own weekend), and our combined 34 children (our children now plan an annual trip to the beach).  Over the past quarter of a century plus that our lives have intertwined we have experienced marriages – at first our own and now the kids, births, baptisms and other sacraments, a divorce, physical and mental illness, sickness and death among many of our parents and some of our siblings, semi-annual camping trips when the kids were young (imagine 30 kids, many in diapers experiencing the great outdoors), multiple fights followed by multiple reconciliations… You get the picture.  We have shared the highs and lows of life during our entire adult lives.  I am never sufficiently grateful for the gift of these friendships.

Texas Monthly’s August 2008 issue hit the newsstand just as we were departing for our annual excursion.  Charlie Llewellin’s cover story scoped out the 25 Best Swimming Holes in the State Republic of Texas.  Three of us took seven hours to make the three hour trip from Austin to Leakey as we sampled five of the top twenty-five.  The group tried another two over the weekend, and we hit one more on the way back to Austin yesterday.  As expected, Austin’s Barton Springs ranks numero uno,  But, our number one is a secret spot (shown in this photo of yours truly - click on picture to enlarge) within a few miles of Texas Monthly's No. 6.

Oh, and by the way, BARF stands for Boys Assembled for Reflection on the Frio. Thanks for indulging me with the post that is light on "legal" and "theory."