i'll see your barton springs and raise you a blue hole

i like barton springs. i can't begin to estimate the number of times i have swum there. on a hot, humid day, barton's pool is a real life saver. once you regain the ability to inhale oxygen, you'll notice you're in a real place of beauty. as much as i like barton springs, i'm not in love with it as the premier swimming spot in the hemisphere. if you live around austin, you'll notice the very popular dogma of revering a wide spot in a creek as an aqueous mecca. "the waters are healing" is what we're led to believe. you become one with nature. ok. i'm glad you love it ; i think it's pretty cool, too. and on a good day, there's almost enough room to swim 6 full strokes without smacking someone in the head.

here's my argument for why blue hole far surpasses barton's as a superlative home of aquatic bliss. barton wants me to pay money to swim in a creek, while my place is free. ooh, you have a diving board. how very country club of you. i prefer to leap from a cliff into 81 feet of unbelievably clear, blue water. while your pool is closed to clean the pool and remove the sewage that has flowed downstream into the "pristine waters," i'll be diving into unsullied waters bubbling up from the aquifer where it has been cleaned and filtered as mother nature intended. i've never been to blue hole when the crowd remotely approached barton's typical summer attendance. while 67 degrees is very refreshing on a summer afternoon, 61 is truly memorable.

now for the bad part: while i can drive to barton's in 45 minutes; it is 700 miles to blue hole. what did you think? this isn't a fairy tale. if blue hole were so easily available you'd be there too. well, i guess i'm lucky i love the san marcos river as much as i do.