Bats, Corn Maze, & Zilker Park

Written by Wifey

Okay!  So, it's been a long time since we've blogged anything, and a lot has happened.  First, Kidlet was born at the end of 2012, and has brought a lot of chaos, exhaustion, and joy to our family.  Then, Hubby got transferred from LA to Austin, TX, which actually worked out quite nicely, because we have family there, and thus free babysitting (yay, date nights are coming back!).  We've only been in Austin for a few weeks, and it's a very different culture, and we're having a hard time adjusting to the confusing roads, lack of signs, and rather bad drivers, but so far, we're enjoying our new home!

This week, we did quite a bit of exploration, and checked out some of the popular sites of Austin.  First, we headed to check out the bats.  Apparently, the Congress Ave bridge in downtown Austin has become a home to the worlds largest bat colony (over a million!), and every night, they fly out to go hunting.  It's a bit hard to see and comprehend, but it's a rather cool thing to see, just these black dots flying from under the bridge.  It was crowded at first, and then people left pretty fast, but we hung out for awhile to just take it all in.  Definitely a nice free thing to check out!

Super tall corn stalks!

Enjoying the rest of the farm festivities!

Then, we decided to head out to the Barton Hills Farm Corn Maze!  We'd never been in a Corn Maze before, and so it was rather fun to get lost for a little bit.  But not too lost, because they have stations with trivia questions where the right answer will tell you what direction to turn.  After we found our way out of the maze, we enjoyed a relaxing time hanging out at the rest of the farm activities, including feeding goats, taking pics with pumpkins, & enjoying live music.  It totally wore our little girl out, and she had a nice nap driving back home!

Hanging out enjoying the park

The next day, we decided that we didn't have enough relaxing outdoor adventures, so we headed to the famous Zilker Park - holy cow, that place is HUGE!  It's also a rather fascinating example of LA vs Austin.  In LA, a park like this would have signs up everywhere giving legal disclaimers, saying what you couldn't do, areas you can't go, etc.  In Austin, we saw no disclaimers, no signs forbidding activities, and the only real signs were politely asking us to avoid some areas so the grass could grow back.  The result?  A lovely laid back park, where dogs are running free, people are throwing around a football, sparring/boxing, laying in a hammock, etc, and everyone seems to be in harmony.  I didn't hear anyone yelling snarky remarks, or giving anyone the stink eye because their dog was playing too rough with someone else's dog, or because a dog ran over to a stranger's blanket.  In fact, in a huge area with at least 30 dogs running around free, we only saw one bit of poo that someone hadn't picked up, and no litter!  It's rather impressive how well people behave when treated like responsible adults!

Admiring the skyline & the Colorado River

Anyway, after we hung out in the dog area, we then explored one of the hiking trails.  Gorgeous!  Only managed to make a small portion of the trail, before we decided to turn back because Kidlet was getting tired, but I'm pretty sure we'll be returning soon!

Overall, the weekend was just the right amount of exciting and relaxing, and make us feel really good about our new hometown.

:-) Hello Austin, the Tull-looloos have arrived!!