Three Days in Austin

I spent the past three days in Austin, Texas at a conference for work. It seemed like a great idea a few months ago when I agreed to the trip... but that was before Sasha's surgery was scheduled and I spent a week in London and we realized that it was the boys' first week off of school and I contracted a really colossally nasty virus. But the conference was good, the kids and Steve survived my absence, and I sort of survived my really nasty virus. Fevers and chills in a hotel bed suck... but I digress.

My coworkers and I did manage to see a few can't-miss Austin sights in our three days. We ate TexMex at Chuy's, had a BBQ dinner eating off of waxed paper at a restaurant that adjoined a gas station, walked along 6th Street, and saw the "World's Largest Urban Bat Population." I mean, come on, if you hear that you're in the city with the "World's Largest Urban Bat Population" you just have to see it!

It turns out that a bridge in downtown Austin was rebuilt in the 90's and has grooves running down its length that over the years have become summer home to over a million Mexican Freetail Bats. These bats come out every night at dusk and throughout the summer consume over four million pounds of insects. Wow.

Seeing the bats come out was really amazing. Totally creepy and really amazing. You can see the cloud of bats flying out from under the bridge in this photo and the exodus lasted for at least twenty minutes. That's a lot of bats.

And now I'm home again safe and sound and am finally starting to recover from said colossally nasty virus. As I left for work this morning, Ben called after me, "Don't get on an airplane today!" Thanks for the reminder, buddy.