South Congress Ave. Bridge – Austin TX

Posted By John Chabalko on October 18th, 2007

Did i mention that we were in Austin last week for a few days? I was there for some work meetings that started first thing Thursday morning and i arrived mid-afternoon wednesday so i spent a little bit of time walking around the downtown. I ended up down by the river at sunset looking for the bats i’d heard so much about. It couldn’t have been closer to my hotel – which was kind of nice as it was about 85 degrees and i’d been walking around in long pants all afternoon.

Anyway – there we no bats at but there were lots of people looking. It was rather amusing as there are boat tours of the river that appear to have the goal of showing off the bats to those aboard. After the sun went down and no bats had appeared all of the boats ended up under the bridge shining lights and flashing strobes trying to flush the bats out – with no luck.

I stood on a rickety pier sticking out into the water and tried to pass the time making pictures of the bridge. The light called for a pretty long exposure but because of the rickety pier and the other people who had arrived i couldn’t really make that happen. I was able to get off one relatively long exposure without too much jitter. Again, no bats, but a rather nice looking bridge along the river.

(I’m ready to go back to Austin)