A visit to Austin

On October 13 we flew to Austin, Texas for Barry to present at a conference. It was the first time I had flown in over a year, since well before my chemo, and I was nervous about the length of the trip. We flew from Buffalo to Washington DC, had a layover in Washington and then flew on to Austin. With a taxi ride at both ends and the layover time, we were travelling for almost ten hours. I had a rest when we arrived and still had energy to go out to dinner with a friend.

Although Barry was busy with the conference we went out to dinner with friends every night. The weather was over 90 degrees during our first few days and I spent some time around the outdoor pool. The Hilton is close to downtown and there were many restaurants close by. We also walked by the river most days. Here we are having dinner with our old friends Rodger, and Ray and Elsie.

One of the most interesting things about Austin is the bat colony that roosts under the Congress Ave bridge. It is the largest urban bat colony in North America and every night around sunset the entire colony of about 1.5 million bats erupts from under the bridge in dark streams. Hundreds of people go there every evening around sunset and wait for up to an hour for the bats to appear. The night we went the bats erupted quite late but we were able to get a spot on a dock downstream from the bridge and saw the bats clearly against the night sky.