𝓦𝓲𝓶𝓫𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓮𝔂, 𝓣𝔀𝓮𝓷𝓽𝔂 𝓨𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓼 𝓸𝓯 𝓕𝓵𝓸𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓑𝓵𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓸 𝓡𝓲𝓿𝓮𝓻

My friend knew about Rio Bonito. That first year we went was the summer of 1985. Our kids were a little older than babies, three and five, four kids in total. The summer was laid out in a blaze of hot days ahead of us. Looking for a place that was not the Texas coast, we decided on The Rio Bonito Resort. It was a place outside of time where cabins and a lazy river were static, and the yearly comings and goings of the same families had not made the slightest dent on the landscape.

How could we have known that first year, as we celebrated my birthday on the front porch of Cabin 8, that the years would pass until we had spent a little more than twenty years returning for a week each summer. And that our babies would grow up knowing what it was like to float the clear Blanco River, seeing its subtle changes from year to year. 

Rio Bonito Resort, primitive as it was, filled those years with the greatest portion of laughter, storytelling, sunburn, coffee, beer, and margarita drinking, kids biking, eating in the yearly procession of new restaurants, outdoor movie theatre watching, and the best part, hours floating and sitting in the ever-changing flow of the Blanco River.

That first year, my friend and I invited other friends with little children to join us for a day. They, too, felt the draw of that eternal place where the Texas Hill Country begins and quiet descends each night when the stars come out. Our children knew it too, that those days spent each year were the magic childhood was crafted around, and we Mothers knew it, too. We were families together. The fathers were only there on the weekends. Eight days was a long time in the beginning, but as the years came and went, we found ourselves arranging cabin assignments at the end of each week and calling frantically when the bookings opened in January to get our week reserved. Most years, we would rent the entire place, knowing ahead of time which cabin would be for what family. When our girls finally started using hair dryers and other appliances needing power, we realized that cabin 8 did not have enough wattage to support our beauty needs. We kept shorting it out. So we moved to cabin 9, which had two stories and a second-story balcony. Cabin 9 did have some unique issues. When showering upstairs, you had to be sure to direct the shower just so, or else it would run down the walls into the kitchen. That was our cabin for many summers, and I always wondered when the ceiling would have had sufficient water damage to make it collapse, but it never did.

Over the years, we knew the stories of each cabin, and when we moved to The Pioneer Casita, we noticed on the wall a wrinkled, faded newspaper article in an old frame, which told the story of our cabin having been a hiding place for Billy the Kid. I believe it, and I think the furniture was also from that time. Each year, we would notice an improvement, maybe a new chair or rug, speculating it was from the dump. We knew to always bring extra light bulbs and a new shower curtain to use and then leave for the next family. 

Now, when we travel today things are different, and we expect the best sheets, towels, and bedding, but back then we knew each lumpy bed and poorly working stove. Truly frozen in time, the cabins were charming. Perfect for kids with popsicles dripping, wet bathing suits, peanut butter and jelly, and towels fluttering on clothes lines provided for each cabin. Before cell phones, at the very beginning, we would take turns making collect calls to our husbands at home from the “recreation room,” a place straight out of the western version of the Twilight Zone.

Over the years, we celebrated, cried, got pregnant, and more, just day-to-day living. As school schedules entered the picture, we moved the week into July and sometimes June, but always together as we often rented all the cabins and sometimes had something like sixty people converging on Rio Bonito. 

Working to get away on the first day, we would pack the car, and with kids begging to go, finally get off. The sight of those steep hills and the descent into Wimberley made our hearts fill with excitement. Our tradition was to honk the horn as we crossed the bridge leading into Wimberley, as down below we could see our friends already in the river.

At some point, the kids grew up and went on their separate paths in the summers. We came back a few times, people scattered here and there, but never like we had been during those wonderful twenty years growing up. Our kids have often said that we gave them the greatest gift during that yearly week in Wimberley. They were free in so many ways, and frankly, so were we as moms. We took a nap each day, something I never did at home, and would sit under the big pecan tree each morning with coffee as the cabins woke up and the mothers and children trickled out. Many great discussions were held under that pecan tree, and we swore the squirrels were hurling pecans down on us as we visited for hours before we threw on our bathing suits and headed for the Blanco River. A few years in, we even had pie day. The Wimberley pie company was still in business, and so delicious. 

Many adventures and years later, it just takes the mention of Wimberley and memories spill out. The river is always constant, but changing, as some years have drought and some floods keep it interesting. I believe it could be a novel, with the names changed, of course. I know one thing: Wimberley held us spellbound for years.

Today, Wimberley has changed. It is not just a seasonal town anymore and when Bill and I recently visited we drove through the old Rio Bonito now a wedding venue where the cabins are all updated, no more moldy shower curtains to replace, no swarming hords of children riding their bikes from cabin to cabin and then down to the rapids. I know change is part of life, and progress happens. It is ok, because as long as we can, we will remember those days and smell the dust as we drove our caravan of cars loaded with everything needed for a week into the Rio Bonito gates. And yes, we still honk our car horns when we cross the Blanco River bridge, a salute to the ghosts of glorious times past.