Garden Bloggers Geography Project

This post, "Garden Bloggers Geography Project ", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

Pam/Digging's post about Austin is wonderful and comprehensive - go there for the main dish about our city. I'm posting a few photos of places that Pam didn't mention as my addition to Jodi's fun project. Some of you with sharp eyes may note the presence of a small paper person in a few of these photos - we've taken several editions of Flat Stanley out to tour Austin.

Nine years ago I landed at Mueller Airport and saw Austin for the first time - our Illinois house was up for sale and we intended to move to Austin at the end of the summer. It was a whirlwind meeting - just a couple of days driving around to get an idea of what it might be like to live here. Later that spring I returned for house shopping - but didn't land at Mueller... within that time frame Mueller closed and the Austin-Bergstrom Airport opened. So you bloggers coming in for Spring Fling will land at a converted Air Force Base, while ex-airport Mueller is now the site of Austin Studios and innovative new housing.

Until companies like 3M moved in (this explains the high percentage of ex-Minnesotans in Austin) and the high tech boom began, Austin was a two-horse town. One horse was government - Austin is the capital of Texas - above is the dome of the state capitol.

The other horse was the University of Texas - UT. Burnt orange pennants of alumni fly all over town but if the flags are red and white they'll belong to rival Texas A & M alums, subject of many an Aggie joke.

Soon after we got here the University of Texas unveiled a wonderful new sculpture of Dr Martin Luther King - we've frequently taken visitors to see it.

When visitors come we also take them for a ride along Loop 360, originally a scenic highway, now a crowded but still scenic thoroughfare. The Pennybacker Bridge, opened in 1982, caught my eye on the first trip.

Drive a little to the north and you can visit Innerspace Caverns in Georgetown - this cool cave was discovered by the highway department when IH35 was being built.

Drive to the Southeast and you'll find McKinney Falls State Park... here the falls are flowing. It was strange to walk over this area on a day when drought had dried up the water and the air temperature was 110 °F.

[edited Friday morning: Philo noticed that last night I'd posted a photo of Bull Creek rather than McKinney Falls. McKinney comes off Onion Creek. You now see a photo of the real McKinney Falls above with Bull Creek below.

Bull Creek is on the NW side of Austin. Both of these streams were at flood stage when the photos were taken, and can look quite different depending on the amount of rain that's fallen.]

Drive far to the Southwest and you can find Hamilton Pool. When approaching it from the top you'll see what looks like more of the usual juniper-live oak landscape, but deep in a crevasse is another world, with bald cypress trees, ferns and a stream attached to the Pedernales river, ending in a grotto. The preserve, home to endangered species, is part of the Balcones Canyonland Preserve. This enchanted world is endangered by development and pollution.

Maybe there are some Stevie Ray Vaughan fans among you - this iconic blues guitarist died in a helicopter crash in Wisconsin in August 1990, and the city where he paid his dues as a young man erected a memorial to him on the banks of Town Lake - well it's not called Town Lake any more - now it's called Lady Bird Lake, in memory of Lady Bird Johnson.

We say "Lake", and the system of Highland Lakes also include Lake Austin, Lake Travis and more - but these are actually reservoirs formed from the Colorado River [no not that Colorado River in Colorado - this one in Texas] which traverses more than 850 miles of our state. Before the dams were built, the Colorado was just a stream under normal circumstances, running through the small capital city - but when a storm hit, the floods were horrific. Dams were built - some failed causing death and destruction- some held, allowing this part of Texas to grow and prosper and allowing this peaceful paddleboat scene in downtown Austin.

In Hyde Park, north of the University area, you'll see another peaceful scene - the Elisabet Ney Museum, once the studio of an interesting Austin sculptor, a German artist who came to Austin in the late 1800's with her husband Edmund Montgomery. He was a philosopher and she created dramatic biography in marble, riding from their farm to what was then the outskirts of the city. I can't explain why, but this is one of the places I love best in Austin.

Thanks for letting me tell you about the city where I live.

This post, "Garden Bloggers Geography Project ", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.