"the map!"

Most folks who know me know that I am a printer by livelihood. I have had the good fortune to print and publish throughout the state. Some of the titles I have had a hand in creating are Time, Life, Texas Monthly, TV Guide, and Parade to name but a few. All worthy of the ink and paper that went into them (all the news thats pit to frint...).

There was one item I printed in Austin, Tx in 1978 that rattled my cage. You see I moved to Austin in June and had been travelling there the preceding three years on SCUBA diving junkets to Lake Travis. So I had a clue that there were water features out there in the Hill Country around Austin. This little gem I printed was called "50 Swimming Holes an Hour from Austin". Now for this aquaphile this was like the 'match book of the month club' for a pyromaniac. During the printing and subsequent discovery of these '50 holes' my first summer in Austin was booked.

Why just some of the names were idyllic and descriptive and conjured cool paradise. Places like 'Blue Hole', 'Deep Eddy Pool', 'Hippie Hollow' (clothes optional!), 'Barton Springs', 'Krause Springs', and 'Jacobs Well' to name but a few. I moved that summer of 1978 with a contingent of high school buds that were down there for college (a rich man goes to college and a poor man goes to work....) and together we made it our mission to seek and enjoy as many of those '50 holes' in "the map".

Hamilton Pool

One swimmin hole left me stunned when I climbed into that grotto the first time. In the summer of 2008 I took my family on the "Mike Manes Memorial Swimming Hole Tour". The first 'hole' on the tour was Hamilton Pool. HP is truly God given because no man could of thought of this. It is a collapsed grotto (think cave with the ceiling gone)  with a waterfall at one end spilling about 70 feet into an emerald green pool that is cool and deep. Gravel beach at the other end and overhanging cliffs on one side with a 75 foot drop. Watched my brother Patrick do a half-gainer twice from up there. Hamilton Pool is easily in my top ten natural wonders of Texas not that we should ever limit Texas to a list as short as ten.