Going through the pics on the camera to put up my fantastic view of the eclipse (sacrasm) I came across some pics I took one day. My son had a friend over, and my brats older brother and his pal were on their way to the river to go swimming, of course they wanted to go with them. I nixed the younger group from going. I am responsible for any kids that come to stay here, and letting them run off with the bigger kids, unsupervised, to the river was not my idea of properly looking after them.

So they were bumming around obviously stung by my adult decision, and I thought why not take them to the creek? It’s just down the road and there are usually good swimming holes dotted along its course. This perked them up, and we dressed appropriately, grabbed the insect repellant, and headed out in my 3/4 ton, 4WD Chevy.

We got to the creek, and as we go creeking often I have a walking stick that lives in the bed of the truck, walking stick in hand, and sprayed for skeeters, we headed off.

Along the way I spotted some fungi growing out of the creek bank, it was sporting a bright color hue that caught my attention. The damn focus on this camera is whack, but you can see it’s pretty cool:

Then we walked on down the creek where the really good swimming hole used to be. It wasn’t there anymore. I mean it was there, but we had some heavy rains earlier in the year and the old swimming hole had a log jam right in the middle of it. So we backtracked to a spot that looked inviting, but we passed by it thinking the good swimming hole would be there. Anyway we got to the hopeful spot and they made the best of it.

We stayed for a while and headed home. Not long afterward the two older boys came back, the swimming hole they went to at the river was overgrown with grass*. They didn’t get to go swimming. Ha!

*Several years ago while I was still diving some idiot bass fisherman from Texas, who thought there wasn’t enough cover in the river system, brought with him a sample of some sort of aquatic grass. They know it is from Texas because the state tested it’s DNA, and found where it came from. Anyway the grass was started way up river from our location, but it soon spread our way. It has become an infestation of enormous magnitude. Along the river banks and anywhere there is a shallow ridge, and there are many, it is covered up by this grass. I used to encounter this grass often while diving and it was a nightmare. It would get so thick I could not get through it, and have to abort the dive and move somewhere else. Besides being a major inconvenience to divers and boaters, it is also an eco disaster. I often wish they could find and prosecute the fucking moron that introduced this invasive species. An entire river system infested with this grass. Because some jackass fisherman knows best. I get angry every time I think about it… Think good thoughts, get back to swimming, lets not end this post on a sour note 🙂