Austin Bat Ride – Sept 15-16, 2007


Load up and head down to Longhorn 30 miles shy of a full tank. There is quite a few riders there at 8am ready for the days ride. There are 2 rides planned to leave Longhorn at 8:30am on Saturday. Philip Mason is announcing that one group is the frog ride and the other group is the bat ride. Kristy and I are packed for the bat ride. We meet up with Della to sign up for the ride. The bat list was short. We had Della, Frank, Kristy and I on 3 Streetglides. The frog ride heads out with a bunch of riders headed to eat.

Della is helping Jerry with his cb on his Ultraclassic. We have had our cheese crackers for breakfast and started gearing up. Della and Frank gear up and off we go. There is another rider following us. It’s Jerry on the Ultraclassic. Wow, guess he decided to ride with us. Nice ride to Glenrose where our first stop is at an Exxon. This is when Jerry finds out we are headed for Austin on an overnight ride. Jerry gets directions from Frank for a good ride back to the metroplex. Jerry is still smiling even knowing he followed the bats instead of the frogs.
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We head on down for probably the prettiest part of the ride. Della has the Yum Factory in Lampasas charted out for some good road food. Several chicken fried steaks were ordered and consumed.

We made the 71 exit with Frank at drag and headed into Austin arriving at the Best Western hotel in Austin sometime between 3 and 4 pm as Della had planned. There were some of us that took a nice nap. Others, me, had to go buy a toothbrush and toothpaste. Kristy and I had planned for my niece to join us for dinner and the bat boat. She met us at the hotel and we worked out the trip to the dock.

We loaded up on the bat boat after some parking struggles. Frank, Della, Kristy, my niece Amber and I are ready for the boat cruise and to see a million bats. We take a seat on the front of the boat with a small overhang that hopefully will protect us from bat guano. My grown-up little niece, Amber and Kristy pose for a picture with me.
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Della and Frank are ready to see some bats.
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The captain gave us a tour down the lake with some interesting facts about the Colorado River history and Austin. The tallest building in Austin has a quite interesting story. A Rice University graduate designed the building. Remember we are in the home of the Texas Longhorns. The Rice Owls are stationed in Houston. The captain told us to look how the top of the building resembled an owl. Also, this is the first building in Austin to be built that is taller than the Texas Capitol Building. It took special approval for this to happen. We moved toward the bridge where we could hear a bunch of screeching. I guess the bats were waking up. Moved to the south side of the bridge where the captain turned the boat around. This is when the bow seating on the boat became front row. The bats are flying after dark to feed this year due to the abundance of insects from the rains. The boat was equipped with a red spotlight that allowed us to view the bats leaving. More interesting facts about bats but you have to go with us next time to find out.









We were hungry for food even after smelling bat guano.&

 

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