Monday in Austin

Monday, October 1, 2012

Another month ticks off the calendar.  It doesn’t feel like October because it is still so warm and sunny.  We could get used to this.  The temperatures have dropped just enough to be mostly comfortable.  We packed up the car, finished cleaning the condo and watering and on our way to Austin.  San Antonio was good to us.  First we drove out to the state park near Austin but decided it was too far out and not enough of a cost benefit to be trying to find our tent in the dark.  We found a motel and checked in and then headed in to Austin.  We headed for the SoCo (South Congress) district which is the best place to understand the “Keep Austin Weird” slogan that Austinites embrace.  It is a fun strip of funky shops and restaurants and live music venues.  Examples include Lucy In Disguise With Diamonds which is an 8000 square foot costume palace, Uncommon Objects which describes itself as a “one-of a kind emporium of transcendent junk”, a food trailer park, and fun shop Monkey See, Monkey Do.  We had lunch there had Guero’s Taco Bar which was quite good.

  We then walked along Lady Bird Lake or Town Lake.  It is a lovely trail along what looks more like a river.  Parts of it are wide and other parts are kind of like the backwaters of the Mississippi with lots of turtles and aquamarine water.  There were lots of people out walking, running, and with their dogs.  Austin appears to be quite a “fit” city unlike some of the other places we have been and many young people.  We walked back and got ready for our bat experience.

When the Congress Avenue bridge was completed in 1980, the Mexican free-tailed bats found the underside vertical crevices to be the ideal roosting site.  The bridge has 14,000 linear feet of potential bat habitat.  (This of course was completely unplanned when they built the bridge).  The bats moved in and now there are approximately 1.5 million bats who call the bridge home and give birth to one pup a year.  They live there from March to November and then migrate to Mexico.  Each night at dusk, the bats put on quite a show, as they exit the Congress Avenue Bridge to go hunting for insects.  Together, they consume 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of insects per night!  It is amazing to watch them leave.  They exit for about ½ hour swirling under the bridge and then exiting east down the lake in mass!  It is hard to take pictures but incredible to see.  Apparently in 1984 when the numbers of bats started increasing, there was panic about the bats in Austin and many people wanted them exterminated.  Luckily they brought in some bat experts who educated people about the benefits of bats including devouring unwanted insects and bringing tourists to the city.  There were many people watching tonight and several tour boats in the water to watch the bats.  Great experience!

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