My Trip to Austin Texas

Since my oldest son recently moved to Austin, Texas, I’ve developed an interest in the city, and I’ve visited twice so far. Austin is apparently one of the fastest growing cities in the United States right now. This is obvious in the many construction projects underway in the city and the heavy traffic. In fact, traffic alone would keep me from moving to Austin, but I do love the city, especially the architecture, Lady Bird Lake, and the Colorado River. There is a lot of history to learn and fun things to do in the city. They also have great brisket and pizza!

First we walked around Austin

My son showed me where he’ll soon be working after his company moves. It’s the cool, tall building in the middle with the the pointed top. I took this picture from the balcony of a hotel we went inside specifically to take the picture.

Cool building

This building was near the place where we bought the bus tour. There’s a little park we sat in. The park itself was a nice, but the building and clouds caught my attention.

We took a bus tour

I love bus tours because they give you an overview of the city and facts that you might not hear otherwise, unless you go searching. So on my second trip to Austin in late September 2019, when I went alone to see my son, we went on a bus tour. Here’s the beginning with the capital building ahead. We’d gone there on our first visit, and this was definitely a change in the way we saw it.

 I took a lot of pictures, but I’ll only post a few of these. Almost everywhere we looked there were cranes and construction. Austin is definitely booming!

Texas Memorial Stadium

The Texas Memorial Stadium on the University of Texas campus is home to Longhorns football team. During my 2019 visit, it was under construction like . . . well, just about everything else. Below we are approaching the stadium.

Below the stadium is on the right. The other side is taller, which you can see in the next picture. It’s huge, in fact!

 

Little bridge

In Austin, they seem to value parks, biking, and walking. This picture I took near the stadium.

Colorado River

It was fun going over the Congress Avenue Bridge and seeing the Colorado River from the top of the bus.

Congress Avenue Bridge and the bats

Austin is home to 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats who nest under the Congress Avenue Bridge, so at dusk I was standing on the Bridge with a lot of other people to catch sight of the creatures. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good picture of the bats. It got dark too fast. We saw a few flying out, and then a huge cloud of them in the distance. They sure fly fast! In my picture you can see people waiting below the bridge for a glimpse of the bats.

Lady Bird Lake

I’m told that Ladybird Lake, also known as Town Lake in the old days, is simply a dammed section of the Colorado River. Whatever it is, I must say I immediately fell in love with the place. The trail around the lake was perfect, the water was beautiful, and the turtles were amazing! I confess, I adore turtles.

More turtles. We also saw ducks, geese, and a couple of squirrels. The water was a brilliant aqua, probably from the algae, and I wondered if that was why there there signs warning people not to let pets swim in or drink the water.

Below, I am sitting on a stone wall at Lady Bird Lake, with Austin in the background. Next time, I hope to spend an entire day walking around this beautiful lake. I’ll take my girls next time, because I know they’ll love it. By the way, my son doesn’t like pictures of him posted online, so that’s why I’m the only one in the picture, lol.

Next time, I’m going to show you my son’s cool 3D printer we used to make a clip just to show you all.

Copyright 2019 Teyla Rachel Branton

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