Off Season

The air temperature on the banks of the Frio River read 39 degrees at 8 a.m. on January 1.

Five of the six of us Wicks celebrated the New Year by jumping into the crystal clear water.

My wife graciously declined under the excuse that someone needed to take videos.

But she later said she regretted not joining in as myself and our four kids did a polar plunge to kick off 2025 in grand style.

“After that, I feel like I can handle any other challenge in the new year,” said our daughter Ella.

It’s a big year for her. She’s set to graduate from UT in December.

Whatever the new year brings, I hope she – and her three younger brothers – remember that lesson.

Doing something daunting usually isn’t nearly as bad and the anticipation of doing it.

We’d come down here to the tiny little south Texas community of Concan (population 225 but that seems like a gross exaggeration) for a little post-Christmas getaway – three nights in a riverfront cabin at Neal’s Lodge, nestled beneath a towering limestone canyon wall and ancient bald cypress trees.

This New Year’s getaway for us was about as far-removed from last year’s as possible.

Twelve months ago we had rang in 2024 on a rooftop in Brooklyn watching fireworks explode over the Statue of Liberty (a trip only made possible when we were asked to dog-sit up there for a friend over the holidays).

This New Year’s Eve, we couldn’t even see any neighbors – and we watched those New York City fireworks on TV next to a roaring fire from logs we’d collected around the property.

But that doesn’t mean this year’s adventure was any less enjoyable.

For three days we had the Frio River all to ourselves – at rates half the price of what they charge during the summer.

We kept the fireplace, the fire pit and the bbq pit roaring. We wrote down on pieces of paper the things we wanted to leave behind in 2024 – and then crumpled them up and threw them into those fires.

We played board games and dominos. We picked shallow spots smack dab in the middle of one of the most beautiful stretches of river in the state, steadied the lawn chairs amidst the river rocks and soaked our feet until they were numb in the cold water – rehashing the adventures of 2024 and wondering what 2025 might hold.

A can of beer stayed just as cold in the river as in a cooler. The deeper swimming holes at Neal’s are packed and loud during the summer season, but not in late December. There’s not an RV or a pop-up canopy in sight. You can skip rocks without worrying about hitting anybody. There’s no tubers floating by to disturb the surface of the glassy water. You can cast your lure right in front of all sorts of fish – and get to watch as they ignore it.

It was off season down here – the perfect time to have something all to yourself and really savor it.

There was nobody else around to watch a bunch of crazy Wicks jump into some cold water in those first few hours of 2025.

If there had been, maybe we wouldn’t have done it. Nobody, it seems, goes to the Frio River in winter. Except us. But in a place known for going with the flow, there were wonders aplenty to be found going against the grain.

And that’s the lesson I want to carry into 2025. When everybody’s looking one way, I want to look the other. There’s no telling what you might find. Hope you have a great 2025.

Jeff Wick is the Editor of The Fayette County Record. One of his New Year’s resolutions is to write a column every week in the newspaper. But he’s never kept a resolution all year – so we’ll see. He can be reached at jeff@fayettecountyrecord.com.