“You watch them big rocks in Post Oak Bend.”

That was the advice given to John Graves as he launched his canoe on that historic trip down the Brazos .

It will be fifty years this November since he took that trip. But as the book says, October is the right time. So Saturday and Sunday some friends and I duplicated a little piece of that journey, including one friend who had hand-built the canoe I was sitting in when I took this picture.

We set in at Rochelle’s and camped overnight at Post Oak Bend, where we had permission from the landowner. Our intention was to continue on the next day but the water was low and we realized we would spend half our time on foot pulling the canoe. So we just fished in the deep water off the bend all day.

Where were the big rocks, I kept wondering. Was it those on the right in the picture, or plenty more like them along this stretch. You come into this bend through some shallow rapids, and I suppose if the water were higher, as it was when Graves made his trip, it could send the canoe scooting into the rocks.

Anyway it was all great fun, and nobody wanted to leave when it got dark and the time came to pack up.