Thurs-Fri March 6-7 2014 - Admin / Austin Bones and Bats
Admin day for us while Tiina, Mychael and Breila went to San Antonio. They had a great day. We managed to plan our
way back to Ontario…mileage and camps and timing. Target to arrive in Niagara
Falls on April 9th traveling
weather permitting. Other admin stuff and blog caught up and we are ready to
go.
Fri Mar 7th Downtown Austin
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| No Comment |
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| Kind of sad to see |
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| Very kind of sad |
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| Not how we want to see them.. roll on May Safari |
Lazy morning then out to visit The Corner Store i North Austin…. a rarity of retail.
In fact we have categorically NEVER seen anything quite like it. Taxidermy-ed animals, lions, giraffe, bison, fox, snakes... in fact hundreds and hundreds of breeds and a massive collection of animal
skulls and bones. Breila bought an armadillo (a real one stuffed!!!) and she also bought some earrings made from the rattle end of a rattle snake and they really do rattle!!
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| Thousand of Antlers for sale |
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| These are well preserved, but still .......!!! |
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| The 'Corner Store" .."skulls anyone??" |
We carefully put the armadillo in the back of the truck and set off to downtown Austin, all chirping merrily about what to name the armadillo... which we voted unanimously was a female. We went straight to Capital Cruises bat tour on the
Ladybird Lake. We were early so enjoyed a drink in the Hyatt patio on the banks of the river. After boarding the 'bat mo-boat" we cruised around until dusk and were given a bit of a tour of the Austin skyline. We then saw the bats emerge from under the
Congress St bridge. Not a huge display as its too cold and the females have not
yet had their babes.. but impressive nevertheless. There are an estimated 750,000 pregnant bats under the bridge and when they all give birth in a month or so and the babies mature enough to venture out, then 1.5 million bats emerging would be quite a sight. There are no males in the colony... they are in Mexico sipping tequila... go figure.
We (and Tiina) then walked up Congress St. (Mychael and Breila took a pedi-cab). We had a fine dinner at Manuel's and then walked over to Sixth St where the road was blocked off for the duration of an annual film/music festival called South by South West or SXSW. The street was full of party goers and the scene was in full
swing. The whole street teemed with bars, and it seemed every bar had a live band. We wandered
around and soaked it all up for a couple of hours, fascinated by the crowd, the music and the atmosphere.. electrifying to say the least.
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| Neat carriage on Congress St |
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| Graffiti ... forgot the story!! |
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| Janice's Batty husband |
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| Mychael about to take off |
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| Crowd in 6th St for SXSW |
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| Cat video in window (it was a 2 story cat) |
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| Bar on 6th St... Photo taken from outside |
