Gone Batty on the River
This weekend, I flew down to Austin with some friends from work to "float the river." This was my first time to float the river in Texas, and I soon learned that this phrase has a different meaning in Texas than in Oklahoma. Where I come from, floating the river means renting a canoe and paddling down a river. But here, this means floating in innertubes. Either way, quite fun.
So on Friday, we meet up in Austin to watch the bats. Excuse me? Yep, the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin is home to the largest bat colony in north america. Each night, they fly out in droves to go eat all the bugs in the area. It's really facinating, and also very gross. First, you hear them wake up just as it starts to get dark--they make these high-pitched squeaking noises, then, they start streaming from under the bridge, flying as fast as they can, falling in to travel in packs to the grassy areas where they'll eat up to 30,000 pounds of insects. This exodus lasts for about 20 minutes--just long enough for you to think--good grief, where are all these bats coming from!! It was very interesting, and very disturbing, and it made me really glad the bats were out to get the insects, and not me. Because if 1.5 million bats ever decided they were going to come after us, I don't think we'd stand a chance!
Saturday, we hung out at Matt's family's ranch house near Bastrop, then drove to New Braunfels to float the river. The water was cold, the sun was warm, and we had a great time! Thanks to my spf 50, I didn't get burned, but I do have a nice Teva tan line from my river shoes...nice. The Comal river is the shortest river in North America--who knew? (between that and the bat colony, we visited all sorts of superlatives) After a tasty dinner at Rudy's BBQ--we went back to the ranch.
Saturday night was the annual Perseid Meteor shower. The almost full moon really brightened up the sky, but we were still able to see several great shooting stars. It sounds like the ones in October and November should be better--they'll both have a new moon, and the shower falls on a weekend, so ithat makes it nice to stay up late to see the meteors.
Sorry for the random post, it was a random weekend.
So on Friday, we meet up in Austin to watch the bats. Excuse me? Yep, the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin is home to the largest bat colony in north america. Each night, they fly out in droves to go eat all the bugs in the area. It's really facinating, and also very gross. First, you hear them wake up just as it starts to get dark--they make these high-pitched squeaking noises, then, they start streaming from under the bridge, flying as fast as they can, falling in to travel in packs to the grassy areas where they'll eat up to 30,000 pounds of insects. This exodus lasts for about 20 minutes--just long enough for you to think--good grief, where are all these bats coming from!! It was very interesting, and very disturbing, and it made me really glad the bats were out to get the insects, and not me. Because if 1.5 million bats ever decided they were going to come after us, I don't think we'd stand a chance!Saturday, we hung out at Matt's family's ranch house near Bastrop, then drove to New Braunfels to float the river. The water was cold, the sun was warm, and we had a great time! Thanks to my spf 50, I didn't get burned, but I do have a nice Teva tan line from my river shoes...nice. The Comal river is the shortest river in North America--who knew? (between that and the bat colony, we visited all sorts of superlatives) After a tasty dinner at Rudy's BBQ--we went back to the ranch.
Saturday night was the annual Perseid Meteor shower. The almost full moon really brightened up the sky, but we were still able to see several great shooting stars. It sounds like the ones in October and November should be better--they'll both have a new moon, and the shower falls on a weekend, so ithat makes it nice to stay up late to see the meteors.
Sorry for the random post, it was a random weekend.
posted by Katie at 11:02 PM
3 Comments:
Sounds awesome! My older sister and her family live in Bastrop and LaGrange (where we grew up) is just 30 minutes away!! I'm jealous that you got to float the river!
Good reading this posst
Thankss for writing this
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