Trip to Austin

We have some friends from Rexburg who have been in Austin for an internship. We decided to go visit them and explore Austin one Saturday.

First stop was the Capitol.

Cool old stairway in the visitor's center.

That's what I think of you always taking my picture... ;)

Star centers where you can learn more about Texas and its capitol.

We're from Texas y'all!

Howdy!

"This vest is freakishly small..."

Covered wagon walkway.

The Goodness of Liberty is the statue on top of the capitol building. I do my best impression go her face.

Colton's Goodness of Liberty impression...

Exploring the grounds.

This monument represents all the different people who have lived/live in Texas.

It's a very stately building. Can you see the Goodness of Liberty?

This was a memorial to Firefighters. Can you see the tiny guy on his hat??? Don't know why he is there.

Inside the capitol.

Inside the Treasurer's office.

Looking up the dome.

This is where the state representatives meet.

Check out those star chandeliers. 

Spiffy chairs for all the reps.

This is what the door hinges look like!

This is a really old tree on the grounds. It has all kinds of braces and stuff.

Walking down the sidewalk back to our car, we got super close to this bird before he flew away.

Then there was this nitrogen tank just on the corner with an obvious leak. Okay...

Then we met up with our friends and went to the Natural Bridge Caverns.

Inside the caves.

We spotted several of these little bats while in the caves. They are very small, so they are nicknamed "furry nuggets."

So anywhere there is a cool purply-blue light, it's marking the entrance to another passage that they know and have explored. We didn't go in those though. I think that was part of the splunking tour... ;)

This is the formation they call "The chip and dip." Can you see it?

This one was called "The ice cream shop."

That hole is how they actually found this cave. They were drilling piling and stuff to for the I-35. That hole is were they drilled through the top of the cave

This is a huge flow slab. And it is still alive. You could see little trickles of water running down it. And there was a little pool under it and they said the water in there was about as pure as you could every find.

This is "A sumo eating a cupcake."

Cave paintings--these were obviously done after they found the cave, but they had to put in some cement reinforcements to keep it from collapsing in right here so they decided to have someone come in and paint on the walls. What's cool is that all the animals picture are animals that they found bones from inside the cave when they discovered it.

This was an excavation site inside the cave were they attempted to dig out some bones, but since its so humid in the caves, the bones pretty much disintegrated when they tried to remove them. Since the bones where from animals the scientist have already found lots of, they decided just to leave them alone.

Theres another one of those entrances to other passages in the gave.

This is a picture of that little live water volcano...I think that's what they called it.

Here is "The ice cream shop" again.

By the cave wooly mammoth. Dustin, Lexi, Malea, & Colton.

Our next stop was the graffiti wall. As you can see, it is the abandoned foundations of something. This is the one place were they allow and in fact encourage tagging.

There was a lot to take in, but you can tell that there is a lot of talent going into some of these.

Colton and I could really fit in here...

That black blob above the "O" is Colton's mark. ;)

Then we stopped in at the local candy shop and browsed their spoils.

Then we went to the Bat Bridge. Apparently, thousands of bats fly out from under this bridge at sunset.

They fly up the river and eat the bugs.

We waited as long as we could, but the wind was blowing and it was the first "cold" day we had had, so apparently the bats decided to take the night off. We couldn't stay any longer and ended up leaving before we saw anything. People said that if you come in the summer months, you have better luck. We will have to try next year. Anyone want to come with us??? :)