Out with the mad dogs and Englishmen

103F in the shade. What were we thinking? Off to the Batfest we went, regardless of the heat. The Batfest is Austin's annual tribute to their bat population. The bats live in the underparts of the Congress Street Bridge, emerging every evening to the "Oohs" and "Ahhhs" of the crowd.

To get there we parked along Lady Bird Lake, then walked along the lake path to the bridge. Under the 1st Street Bridge was an unexpected collection of Cypress knees. Though there are Cypress trees all along the lake, we did not know the knees would emerge in shade far from the nearest tree.

We could see our target in the distance. Even in the shady path we were already experiencing the effects of the heat. As we get older this has more and more of an effect on us. My reaction is to just slow down until I can maintain a pace without fainting.

Apparently the past Batfests have had name bands, but this year not so much. The music is still good. It ranged from a Latino band with geezer soundboard support to heavy metal at the other end of the bridge.

We saw only one of these misting fans. They are fairly common down here, where the air is quite dry. They really work!

Most of the booths were boring food, jewelry, and clothing booths. This was one of the more interesting things to see. Kids must want to puke. Three axes of spin will do it!

These limestone wine/towel racks were kind of interesting, but way too expensive to buy.

And that was it, one trip across a long bridge with no shade. Even the mad dogs and Englishmen had given up, and Batfest had hours to go.

With the decline of bats in the Northeast, it is nice to see how much Austin loves its own colony.