Trolls, Feral Pigs, Bats, and Other Texas Wild Life

Austin – New Braunfels, TX

I have to start with my resentments. I guess it’s not healthy to keep them to yourself. Northern Lights. Are you kidding? Every time I look on Facebook there are amazing pictures of aurora borealis. From as far south as Illinois. People are seeing them without any effort at all. Me? I’ve never seen them. Despite making some significant efforts. Getting up at 2 a.m. Paddling out onto a lake in the middle of the night. Driving across the state. And now, the one time we decide to go south, the Northern Lights decide to shine brighter than the Grain Belt sign in Minneapolis. Whatever. I hate everyone. 

Okay, now that I have that off my chest . . .

This episode starts out squarely in Austin. 

We arrived Wednesday, stayed at McKinney State Park outside of town Wednesday evening, connected with our amazing Warm Showers hosts Thursday to drop off our stuff, and then spent the day exploring the big City. 

A few pictures in front of the capital, lunch at the UT college town, explored UT a little, LBJ Presidential Library, quick dinner at a restaurant Diana found that was started by two sisters, and then a bat tour on the Colorado River (not THE Colorado River – I guess this river does not even come from Colorado). 

Bats. 

I guess Austin ended up with these bats by accident after repairing the Congress Avenue Bridge in the ‘80s. The repairs ended up creating the perfect space for the bats to (literally) hang out and raise their pups. 

There are something like 1.5 million bats who summer under the bridge. Each female gives birth to one pup per year. Bats are mammals, so every evening after feeding on tons and tons of insects the moms return to feed the pups. And somehow they are able to identify their particular pup – amongs the 1.5 million bats – based on their pups particular sound and smell. 

At their peak in the summer they put on quite a display. Right around sunset they all emerge from under the bridge, gather together, and then fly off in one huge echolocation pack. It’s enough to make our caped superhero friend from Gotham blush.

Our bat tour was fun. A cruise on the Colorado with all kinds of factoids about Austin. Google has two towers in town now. Lots of tech folks have been moving to the capital city. Matthew McConaughey lives here. There’s a 100 story skycraper going up that will be the tallest building in the country west of the Mississippi. 

Sadly, the bats themselves were a little underwhelming. I mean we saw thousands of bats swarming around. We heard them squeaking. We could smell them (bat guano has a definite odor). And when the boat went under the bridge I ended up getting pooped on a few times. So that was cool . . . I guess.

But apparently a lot of the bats have already headed south to Mexico for the winter. Which is weird because it’s still like a bazillion degrees around here . . . But the upshot is that there was no dramatic swarming event – just a bunch of bats flying around. Which was cool – just not amazing . . .

Warm Showers and Karen and Dave. Wow, did we luck out!

For those who don’t know, Warm Showers is an association of biking type people from all around the world. There is a Warm Showers app that will tell you where there are potential hosts – with info on both sides available for everyone. Kind of like Ride Share in a way. You can look up to see if your driver has good reviews and s/he can look up to see if you have good reviews. 

Anyway, we ended up with Karen and Dave in Austin. They have a great place right in the heart of town. That was great – but what was really amazing is that they took the day yesterday to show us around. 

We all biked over to the Capital and Karen got us lined up for a great free tour. 

Texas is quite a place. 

Let’s see. First it was part of Spain. The Spanish were excited because they thought Texas had lots of gold. That never turned up, and the Spanish had a hard time making inroads in this vast dry land. It was just too wild and wooly for the Spanish – and the reality is that there were a number of tribes of Native Americans who weren’t too excited about sharing their space . . . for good reason . . .

Eventually Mexico fought its own war against the Spanish colonists (kind of like our Revolutionary War against the British a few years earlier) – and in 1821 Mexico declared its indepenence. At this point Texas is a territory of the new independent Mexico. And then in 1836 the Texans themselves shed the Mexicans – with the fighting at the Alamo an important battle on Texas’ road to independence. 

At this point Texas is its own independent republic. I guess Sam Houston, who had been the governor of Tennessee, is now the president of Texas. Sam wanted the capital of the new republic in Houston – his namesake town – so he sent troops to Austin to retrieve the Texas archives. But a young woman in Austin – an innkeeper named Angelina Eberly – single-handedly stopped the troops by firing off a cannon that must have been laying around. She’s a hero in Austin because she prevented old Sam from stealing the capital.

But oil hadn’t been discovered yet so Texas was hurting financially and soon thereafter it applies to join the union and in 1845 it becomes the 28th state. Of course, it wasn’t long after that that Texas joined the confederacy and seceded. 

So, in sum, Native Americans roamed the land that became Texas for about a millennia before the Spaniards showed up. Then Spain tried to run things for a while, but there was no gold and Spain didn’t make much headway. Then Mexico booted the Spaniards out of Mexico, which included Texas. Then the Texans rebelled against Mexico and formed their own union. Then Sam Houston tried to steal the capital. Then, short on cash, the Texans joined the United States.  Then they seceded and joined the confederacy. Then they were beaten and eventually were allowed back into the union. 

Complicated history. Because of it Texans seem to think of themselves as extra special. I guess school kids in Texas have to give the pledge of allegiance to the United States and to Texas. Crazy. 

Oh yeah. One more thing. The capital is amazing. But, again, it was built before oil became a big thing – so the State had no money. Their solution? Trade 3 million acres of land in the panhandle to a Chicago developer if the developer would build the capital. 3 million acres. Bigger than the State of Connecticut. 

Only possible because, when Texas joined the union, they were already their own republic – so, unlike other states, they already had a bunch of land. Upshot is that there is very little federal land in Texas – land that is not private is generally State land . . .

Whew. That’s a lot of history. But I must say, Texas has an interesting past – and it helps explain why Texans have, well, this pretty inflated sense of Texas. 

But I was telling you about our day with Karen and Dave. After the capital Karen took us to this really cool old park. Somebody has put a big troll in the park. Super fun.

And then during COVID they re-did the park and when they re-opened it it had this big treehouse type thing that is also really fun. The kind of thing that gives a city character.

At dusk we headed to the highest point in the Austin area – about 750 feet – and watched the sunset from there. Amazing views of the Colorado River and the skyline. 

And exactly the type of thing we would never do on our own. 

Thank you Karen and Dave for your generous hosting. 

Today’s ride? Not the most scenic, but we went through a number of neat small towns. First one had donuts and a place that Diana said was the equivalent of Rústica (I didn’t go in there – but I think that translates to: “We spent $47 on various baked goods . . .”). The next town – San Marcos – is the home of another university – Texas State, I think – and the headwaters of the San Marcos River. 

Okay, I’m starting to amend my view of these hot, dry, desserty areas. When they have natural springs coming out of the ground at 70 degrees they make for some pretty great swimming and cooling off. Diana didn’t partake, but I did. Amazing respite from the headwind biking . . .

It was after that that we had our encounter. I have actually been telling Diana that I was hoping we would run into a feral pig. Arkansas is the Razorback state. And Texans seems to talk about these boars a lot. 

We’re riding along when Diana asks if that’s a cow across the road. Highly unusual. So we circle back. And there, right in the road, is a feral pig. Complete with the cloven hooves and all. It’s big. Probably 400 pounds. It looked kind of dead – but I’m not sure if he was all the way dead. Miracle Max might have been able to revive him . . .

Anyway, we saw a feral pig. So there’s a box we can check . . .

It turns out that New Braunfels – the town we wound up in today – also has a big natural spring river that is great for swimming. Diana did swim this afternoon. No alligators, no feral pigs, but I think she swam to Mexico and back . . . Which isn’t that far anymore . . .

New Braunfels is also an old German town and we enjoyed a big open air beer hall with live music and schnitzel type meals. Not exactly what we were expecting in Texas – but super fun.

Now I’m sitting in our tent along the river – listening to the water gurgle during the brief intervals when that gentle sound is not overrun by a train rumbling on the railroad trestle that is directly over our heads.