Summer Vacation: Austin, Texas

The cousins getting ready for a swim in Jacob's Well

After a long trip, we finally arrived in Austin!  Where we got to spend a week with Mina, James, Rosemary, Louis, Maureen, Maureen's boyfriend Paul, and Julie, who was out visiting from Rhode Island at the same time. 

As always, it was wonderful to see the cousins playing together, especially Arthur and Louis - Louis was so patient with his baby cousin, he even shared his beloved toy trucks with him. 

Beatrice and Rosemary spent some quality time together painting and doing crafts, though with the occasional friction that comes from the two girls having almost polar opposite personalities.

One of the highlights of our trip was a drive out to Wimberly, Texas, a resort town in the Texas Hill Country about 40 miles from Austin, where we all cooled off in Jacob's Well, a natural spring hundreds of feet deep.  (And yes, you should click on that link to read about "The Fatal Allure of Jacob's Well," though rest assured the well has only proved fatal for cave divers, not casual swimmers.)

Arthur in particular loved splashing in the swimming hole just as he loves pools and bath tubs, he's a natural swimmer.

Dev leaps off the rocks above and into the well.

Speaking of swimming, Beatrice joined her cousins at a daily afternoon swimming class.  I'm working on writing an essay about the class now - it was unconventional, to say the least - but it worked! By the second day of class, B was swimming along with Rosemary and Louis.  "I'm swimming like a penguin!" she would shout proudly.

 Rosemary leaps in and swims across the pool  

 Louis's turn

 Beatrice racing Louis's best friend Miles

 

Beatrice's first attempt off the waterfall

And everyone had a great time in the backyard wading pool, too, especially Arthur.

Another highlight of the trip was bat watching! A colony of almost a million bats lives under the Congress Bridge in downtown Austin and every evening they all fly out en masse to feed for the night.  Dev, Maureen, and I rented a kayak and paddled under the bridge to watch them fly by.  We had to wait a very long time - it seems they fly out later on summer nights - but in the meantime we enjoyed a little waterfront tour of the city.



 People lining up along the Congress Bridge to see the bats come out

Sadly, by the time the bats emerged, it was too dark to get a good photo, but this photo from the site Teen Fiction Cafe gives you an idea of the scene.

 

 Photo by Teen Fiction Cafe

Dev and Maureen said there were fewer bats than usual - or more likely, fewer visible bats than usual because they came out after dark - but we had a great time nonetheless.

We did many other things in Austin, including much excellent eating and drinking, and at the end of a wonderful week we sadly said goodbye to everyone and headed off to Dallas.

Austin on Dwellable