BAT CRUISE ON LADY BIRD LAKE, AUSTIN, TX

Shelia and I were not sure we could get on the bat cruise at the last minute, but that proved to be easy.  We had front row seats on the boat on this beautiful night.  Had we known what to expect, our expectations would have been exceeded.  Just so happens the largest colony of urban bats in North America, about 75,000 and mostly pregnant, migrate from Mexico in the spring and find a home in the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin. They deliver their babies and fly back to Mexico in the fall.  Every evening around sunset the bats leave the crevices of the bridge for their nightly foraging of insects.  The sight of thousands of bats taking flight is unbelievable.   

We boarded the boat and cruised the lake, which is downtown so we got to see the city from the river at dusk. The photo at the top is my favorite building. Beautiful.

Finally it was dark enough for the bats to begin their night flight.

I found this photo online and am including it here since I could not take a photo with this quality.

Shelia and I had been exploring for about 12 hours by the time we got back to the car.  On the way back to the hotel, a sweet tooth made me take a very quick right into the Applebee's parking lot.  Shelia is not much on sweets so we decided on an appetizer to share.  A very exuberant waiter delivered a plate to a customer sitting behind us.  The waiter went on and on about how wonderful this new dish would taste.  Curiosity made Shelia and I turn to the customer to ask about this new creation.  Thirty minutes later we had made a new friend and had learned that we were going to the same town the next day!  I'll tell ya about that next.