A tourist in my own town...

A bunch of people are in town this week -- Eric and Kat, and Eric's friends Jason and Jen and their two kids. Jason and Jen are from Chicago, too... so we all decided to be tourists tonight and take a boat ride to see the bats under the Congress Avenue bridge. What's funny is that I've lived in Austin for years, and I've never once seen our famous bats. So I made sure to bring my camera, so I could document it for my blog...



Here's Eric, happy to be on board the boat and ready to see some bats!

Jason and Jen's little girl -- I thought this picture was SO cute...

Some of the buildings downtown...

More downtown...

People gathering on the bridge to watch the bats...

The bats begin to appear...


More bats...

Even MORE bats...


Kat and Eric enjoying the river cruise...

I thought this was a very "Austin" kind of picture... downtown in the background, and a bridge with "no war" graffiti...

The Frost bank building, which is the tallest building in Austin. It was designed by a graduate of Rice University, whose mascot is an owl -- see the owl? Now all us Longhorn fans have to see that owl all the time. (Actually, since this building went up about a year ago, it's been my favorite building in Austin... :))

So every night, all those bats (1.5 million, I believe is what the guide told us...) fly as far away as Corpus Christi on the Gulf of Mexico, devouring tons of bugs along the way. And every morning they fly back to the bridge. And they do tend to keep the city relatively mosquito-free, compared to some of the other places I've lived. So for that, I have to be happy that my city has this massive bat population. And they were definitely cool to watch -- so if anyone ever happens to be visiting Austin and needs a touristy activity to wile away an evening, I would recommend checking out the bats. :)