Houseboating on Lake Amistad

As part of a two week trip exploring West Texas in early November, we rented a 50' houseboat from Forever Resort's Lake Amistad Resort and Marina operation just west of Del Rio. If you have never been on a houseboat vacation, you need to consider one for your next vacation or just for a fun long weekend. It is a a fantastic and memoralbe way to enjoy some good times on the lake with friends and family. We have rented several houseboats on a variety of lakes including: Lake Shasta in Northern California, Lake Powell in Utah/Arizona; Lake Quachita in Arkansas, and Table Rock on the Arkansas/Missouri border and each still remains as one of our best vacations. Our kids and friends still talk about what great times we had and are always asking when are we going again.

Lake Amistad is well suited to houseboating because of the large number of coves, over 500 miles of shoreline, and some great scenery and archilogical sites to explore. The lake surrounded by a landscape rich in prehistoric rock art, a vibrant border culture, along with a wide variety of plant and animal life. Amistad was created as a joint project between the United States and Mexico - the middle of the lake is actually the border between Mexico and the United States.

Amistad is known for it's excellent year round water based recreation including houseboating, fishing, swimming, scuba diving, and kayaking. The lake is feed by the Rio Grande, Pecos, and Devils Rivers and the water is some of the clearest and cleanest in Texas. The terrain is rocky and arid desert with rolling hills and sheer cliffs.

The Amistad NRA area is home to dramatic 4,000 year-old rock art. These mysterious paintings adorn rock shelter walls in the upper reaches of Amistad Reservoir. Boaters can usually access Panther and Parida Caves (depending on lake level), and hikers can go on a guided tour at nearby Seminole Canyon State Park & Historic Park.

We had our boat rented for four days and three nights, which is not enough time to really explore all there is to see and do on Lake Amistad. We had to make a tough choice to head north up the ??? arm which is a longer but more scenic trip or take our time and explore the ???. We used a very scientific and consensus approach to making the decision, which ended up being "tails" and up the ??? arm we went.

We were very impressed with the service and attention to detail recieved from Forever Resorts. In the past when we've rented houseboats, the boat never seems to be ready, something is always missing, or you can't find someone to help you with something - not the case with Forever Resorts. The paperwork process was simple and easy, the boat was clean and stocked, and staff was available to help as needed.

Forever Resorts offers a pre board/sleep aboard the night before you're scheduled to depart. Which is a great way to go - for about the price of a hotel room, you can board the night before before departure, unpack and store all your gear, and get a good nights sleep on the boat. And you're ready to go first thing in the morning.

After a thorough orientation of the boat equipment and gear and how to drive and park, we headed out on a beautiful morning to explore the lake. As I was heading up the lake, the girls cooked a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and hasbrowns; my daughters got the sound system working (nothing better than cruising up the river, with a boat full of friends, on a beautiful day, enjoying majestic scenery, while listening to some great tunes!); and the boys rigged the fishing poles with what they were sure would catch the biggest fish. The bets on who would catch the first and biggest fish were already in place, so there was a rush to be the first to get the line in the water. Meanwhile, the grandkids had brooken out the games and keep foating between the front deck, the living room, back deck, and upper deck. Our best friend had secured a comfortable chair on the upper deck, had his feet on the rail, and his book and binoculars in hand - anxiously awaiting to make that experience better with a cold beer or froozen drink special of the day! It don't get much better than that! And it was only 10:00 in the morning - we stil had four days of cruising the lake, enjoying the sights, eating and drinking, fishing, swimming, hiking, and playing games into the wee hours of the morning! That's what houseboating is all about!

Over the next few days here is just a sampling of some of the highlights:

• we caught some huge catfish, skinned em, and cooked them three different ways for a fantastic dinner - each chief had to present his dish with a short hilarious dissertation on how it was prepared, why we would like it, and more
• had a great hike to the top of a one of the rocky cliffs for a panoramic view and then spent a few hours picking cactus spurs out of various body parts
• saw some majestic scenery and enjoyed the cool clear refresing water each day for a swim and bath
• awarded the Pina Colodas made with ice cream the "Favorite Drink of the Week", Queso with sausage the "Appitizer of the Week," King Kahuna the "Livelyest Game of the Week," wheat thin crusted catfish sauted in a lemon butter garlic sauce the "Dinner of the Week," and the double back flip off the top deck and the rollover off the water slide the "Trick of the Week"
• took bets on how quickly the mommy goat would find and scold her wandering baby - only took her 21 minutes to coax her back up the cliff to safety
• found some great sites to tie up and spend the night
• gave the rookie docking man at one of the marinas a real thrill as we came in a little fast for an ice and candy stop and then found out he neglected to secure the rear of the boat, which swang out and neally took out a sailboat in one of the slips
• found out that the best of our rock skippers could only get up to 12 skips
• discovered that as much as we love our beer, we still couldn't pick it out of a sampling of 5 different beers and the winner only got 2 out of 4 right
• enjoyed the beautiful sunrises with a hot cup of coffee, the magnificant sunsets from the top deck, and the shooting stars and beautfil star lite nights
• voted the "face in the rock" as the best geological feature

All too soon it was time to head back and put an end to a fun four day houseboating trip. Give Forever Resorts a call (800-255-5561) and book a houseboat on Lake Amistad. They also rent houseboats on a number of other lakes, including Lake Powell which is the ultimate houseboating lake.

Here are a few things to see and do on Lake Amistad:

• If you're into diving there is a dive cove located at Diablo East - locals claim on a good day the visibilty is up to 85 feet and fish are abundant.
• There are two springs on the lake that release over 1 million gallons of water a day and if the water level is a bit below norma, they are visible - one is Indian Springs up the Devils River and the other is
• The lake is rich with rock art and archilogical sites which are over 4000 years old, two of whcih you can get to by boat (check with Lake Amistad Resort and Marina about visiting by houseboat):
  • Panter Cave is the most famous pictograph site and the rear wall of the shelter is covered from floor to ceiling with hundreds of individual notifs collectively forming an uninterrupted panel more than 80 feet in length. The cave's namesake is a 9 foot mountian lion.. You climb a 60 foot steel staircase up to the rock shelter.
  • Parida Cave offers an amazing array of pictographs and a spectacular view of the Rio Grande.
    

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