The Shenandoah Valley in Virginia has moved to second place behind New Braunfels in Texas. I now wish to retire to this "vacation" community. Of course, considering the fact that retirement is officially about 25 years away for us I guess I should keep my options open. Recently my family and I traveled to New Braunfels and "toobed" down the Comal River. Yes, everywhere you look they spelled tube "toob". The Comal is the shortest river in the world, look it up in the Guinness Book of World Records. It took us about two hours to tube down the river, going through three "chutes" where it was small rapids. At times it was so still that we had to push ourselves along with our arms, but the river was absolutely gorgeous. At times we could see the bottom of the river the water was so clear. At times the river was about a foot deep at other times I couldn't touch. The homes and condominiums along the banks made me wish for a real job so that we could visit this Edenic paradise more often. This was definitely our favorite activity.