Bats and More in Austin

Sunday

I slept much better Saturday night than Friday because I was really tired from a full day in San Antonio but also because I didn’t waste time figuring out what was comfortable. Having been all over the chilly northwest in the last week and a half, I hadn't been prepared for windows-open, balmy sleeping conditions, but this second night, I cut to the chase. Covers off except just enough to maintain the illusion of being covered, spread eagle for maximum heat release, as little clothing as possible...that’s the ticket. I generally sleep best in a cool room with warm covers. Maybe it has something to do with the temperature Maw always used to keep the house at. My friends would come over and ask to hop in the fridge to warm up a bit.

We went to the Capitol Ward at an Institute building in Austin. It was a small ward, but the testimony meeting was actually decent and uplifting, go fig. The people there seemed really down-to-earth and sincere, along with seeming fairly diverse (not just ethnically), all of which are refreshing to me. And much to my surprise, I ran into a fellow attendee of Rinny’s game nights who happened to be visiting Austin the same weekend I was! Small world.

After sacrament meeting, we jetted back to the house for a Sunday nap, and two hours plus some loitering later, we helped our hosts prepare for an open house they were holding for a couple who had just moved into the ward. After eating some of the tasty food (veggie pizza-things, fruit “pizzas”, meatballs, Triscuits with cream cheese dip/ball, and some great punch I have to make sometime), we drove to downtown Austin.

First, we stopped in the botanical gardens off of Barton Springs Road, which were beautiful as botanical gardens tend to be. There’s something about botanical gardens that just calls for deep conversation and quiet reflection, along with occasionally shutting off the ol’ noggin, smelling some flowers, and listening to the trickling water.






I think this was our attempt at...attitude? Sexy? I don't really know:



The sun was lowering on the horizon, so we decided to get closer to our sunset destination by perusing downtown. We stopped at the state capitol building and admired its majestic, reddish-rock beauty. Something that dawned on me while looking at the many statues was the rather militaristic nature of much of Texas, at least to a visitor from states where the military history seems much less emphasized. It seems natural to focus on military history with such events as the Alamo being such prominent features in its historical landscape, but I found myself wishing they’d just let it go and have more statues portraying other values or history. I wondered how one’s outlook might be colored, even if slightly, by being raised in such a state. And it occurred to me: I’ll be very wary of voting for another Texan president in the future. *wink*






There was also one of the creepy old-man-baby statues. I'm pretty sure if you pass too close, it will lash out and bite into you with razor-sharp teeth:



The sun was beginning to set, so we made our way toward the Congress Street Bridge via Sixth and Fourth Streets, blasting music with the windows down. Of course, it wasn’t your typical rap, hip hop, or mariachi music you might expect blasting from a couple of dudes cruising in a car downtown. No, we were blasting Sunday-appropriate selections from Les Miserables from the CRV. Yeah, we’re bad: don’t mess with us.

Sixth Street is known as a center for live music, for which Austin is so famous. Our hosts told us Fourth Street is more popular with a slightly older crowd and a bit more laid back, with more jazz music, for example. I would’ve enjoyed stopping at one of the many restaurants, live music establishments, or outdoor cafes for steamers or people-watching. Austin has a fairly attractive downtown scene.

As the sun neared the horizon, it was time to go to the bridge. Why, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Austin happens to be home to the largest urban bat colony in the world. Every night, around dusk, they leave their roosts under the bridge en masse to go hunting for the night, and the exodus is something to behold. Seriously, I don’t know how they all fit in those tiny crevices (you’d never know the bridge was so heavily bat-laden, other than the distinctive odor emanating from it), but they just kept coming and coming and coming. From the little park below the bridge, you can get a good view with the sky as a backdrop. You may also get pooped on a lot if you’re closer to the water. We took our hosts’ advice and watch from the top of the bridge. Our timing was perfect. Just as we walked up the bridge towards the center, they started swarming out, and we stood right over them as they launched out in droves from under our feet.





After a few minutes, it died down, and no more appeared. Then, phase two. Another huge swarm, the second string, apparently, started off along the river and into the sky in the distance. I have no idea where they were all headed, but I’m guessing they generally followed the river, where I imagine they’re most likely to find tasty flying morsels. I had guessed there must be at least hundreds of thousands of them, and online sources say the colony is over 1.5 million strong! In my mind, I heard the flying monkey music from The Wizard of Oz as huge, dark clouds of mini wing-flapping beasties flitted off into the distance in an endless ribbon of winged mammalian frenzy. Very cool.

I took some video of them:


Before going back to the house, we stopped for a quick walk along the creek in the Zilker Park area and stumbled upon the huge swimming pool at the springs source (closed for the day already) and the place where you rent canoes and kayaks to take out onto Lady Bird Lake, which used to be called Town Lake, which really looks like more of a slow-moving river than a lake. It was too late to rent anything, but I guess that leaves even more to do next time.

Back at the roost, we helped clean up from the open house and called it a night after chatting with our hosts for a bit.