Corn Ocean - Taylor, Texas
I have always found lonely beauty in cornfields that stretch to the horizon.
Chile - Viña del Mar
My advice is to get to Chile as soon as possible.
Santa's Firewood
Would you look at that beard.
This is Bill. He drives up to Austin from Lytton Springs, TX, every day this time of year to sell firewood from the back of his truck on the southbound side of Loop 360.
"Been doing this about four years now. None of the houses here have (natural) gas," Bill says. "They all have fireplaces."
"Got here at 8am, and I've sold almost half my load. It's a good day."
The wood is $20 a cord, if you care to get yours from a Santa lookalike.
Christmas Kitsch on Loop 360
the Christmas tradition that has popped up in recent years on Loop 360 is fantastically tacky.
As one of the main routes through the western hills, the beautiful Loop 360 is lined with Ashe junipers. Though hated for their winter pollen explosion causing Austin's "cedar fever" epidemic, they do a very passable imitation of a Christmas tree.
Over the last few years, more and more families, groups, causes, churches, and individuals have spontaneously decorated the junipers along the busy highway. As we get closer to Christmas, it will be hard to find a tree untouched.
Even at their best these guerrilla Christmas trees are a kitschy mess. But they're a joyful mess.
That joyful mess is not always cleaned up properly, which has earned this tradition a fair number of critics.
To decorate between the cliff and the highway, you've got to avoid traffic and falling limestone.
It's a touching way to memorialize a lost loved one.
Merry Christmas!
Along the Seawall: St. Petersburg, FL
People and things gravitate to where the ocean bears hard up against the land.
Summer On Lake Travis
Lake Travis is one of the gems of the Hill Country, just west of Austin.
And one of the best ways to get out on that gem is with Just for Fun Watercraft Rental. Owing a boat is a hassle. Borrowing a boat is fantastic.
The photos here are from a Just For Fun sunset cruise sponsored by Spirit 105.9 FM.
The party boat has water slide from the second level!
And It Was All Yellow
In the spring it's the Texas bluebonnets.
And then by early summer, the sunflowers take over.
Fields go from oceans of blue to avalanches of yellow.
These buttery sunflowers were found in a field south of Dallas.
Occasional Elsewhere: Washington, D.C.
Occasional Elsewhere: Cancun, Mexico
Isla Mujeres
Bluebonnet Spring At Turkey Bend Park
Probably not very manly, but I love flowers.
And Texas is gifted with flowers in the spring and early summer.
The stars of the show are the bluebonnets.
Texas springtime tradition: Mom wrestling with kids to get them situate for the perfect photo in the bluebonnets.
A delightful little girl speeds down the Doug Sahm Hill. Thought she might crash and burn for a bit, but she made it.
Butler Park, Long Center & The Riverfront
Texas does sunsets really well.
But the treats of color also come when your back is to the sunset. That pastel sky is real and frequent around here.
This is looking east from Butler Park toward downtown toward the most recognizable section of Austin's high rises. The iconic Frost Bank building - The Owl with its spiky top - is peeking out. And the Austonian still dominates the skyline, for now.
A mother and daughter enjoy the warm winter twilight in the Liz Carpenter Splash Pad fountains.
Butler Park is a favorite spot for people watching because it attracts such a varied crowd. The fountain-splash area is a great family spot, and the Doug Sahm Hill offers spectacular city views and a romantic perch to watch the sun go down and the city lights come up.
Just east of Butler Park are the iconic Long Center plaza and Auditorium Shores. Both are always full of people on warm evenings: runners, loungers, dog walkers, and couples. And with Austin having just completed its warmest winter on record, the area is rarely empty.
CALLING ALL Friends of the 360 Bridge Overlook
Well, this is just tragic. The 360 Bridge Overlook - one of the iconic views in Austin - has no caretakers.
It has thousands of visitors, but few "friends."
The pics above are what the 360 Bridge Overlook offers at its best. And the pic below of all that trash is the what the lower access area looks like most of the time.
I made some calls, and because the bluffs are in fact private property, the Austin parks department doesn't have any authority or resources to apply there.
Austin police this past week have begun enforcing the parking restrictions along Hwy 360 below the Overlook. This might lower the number of visitors at the Overlook, but it won't deal at all with the trash problem.
We all know that part of the Overlook’s charm is the lack of infrastructure. But untamed is one thing. Unkempt is another.
The litter is this bad or worse the entire length of the parking area on the western Overlook.
I'm up on the Overlook often (as this blog shows), and as our worst-kept secret has gotten more attention, it has also gotten badly abused. It has really gone downhill in the last couple years. The spot is one that tourists seek out (of course!), and it's now almost always fouled with litter.
The amount of trash in the (illegal) parking area is off putting and ought to be embarrassing for the jerks who dump it (of course it's not).
But for those of us who claim to be proud of our city, it's not only shameful, it ought to make us really cranky.
Last year my family started making a habit of cleaning up the Overlook whenever the litter gets too bad to ignore. But the place is too big for just us, and human nature is too relentlessly trash-dumpy.
Today, my son Noah and I again went armed with trash bags, trash pickers, and gloves and waged our futile little war. We collected almost four bags of hipster self-absorption in just the couple hours we had to work. I'm sure they made more this afternoon.
¡WE NEED HELP TO GET THE LITTER UNDER CONTROL!
It looks like our little commons is up to us to protect.
And so I'm putting out a call for a voluntary care-taking effort: Friends of the Austin 360 Overlook.
At the moment, the membership is....well, it's me and my two kids. So, we're recruiting new Friends.
Requirements for membership include: be not currently in prison, own a pair of gloves, able to open a contractor bag, and willing to pick up used diapers, condoms, fast food leftovers, old Christmas decorations, beer cans, beer bottles, beer boxes, actual beer, etc.
A small contribution of time can have a remarkable impact. My son I left a noticeable dent in a couple hours. Just go be a friend because the Overlook needs some!
Looking east from the top of Castle Hill / Graffiti Park toward downtown Austin.
Graffiti Park
Graffiti Park, just west of downtown Austin, lives up to its name.
There's not an unpainted square inch to be found on the cement terraces that have swallowed Castle Hill. It attracts loungers, creators, and observers. The view of downtown is one of the best in the city, and so it's a favorite spot for enamored couples, too.
Graffiti Park's gritty decay is a photo and art bonanza. There were a half-dozen serious camera toters clambering across the concrete walls on this evening.
The young men in these two pics were filming a music video in the twilight. Wish I could dance like that.
An artist adds a graphic design to lower Graffiti Park while a friend stood by lighting his work with a tiny flashlight. He's taping off the wall to keep a sharp line. It's tedious. The tape was off and back on several times before it was exactly like he wanted it.
I do kinda want that design on a t-shirt.
Austin, Texas, USA
Boot Country
I guess it could be more Texan if the flag were the Lone Star, but that's beyond my Photoshop skills.
Still, that's a pretty "Texas" scene.
This ranch scene is off a backroad in a Hill Country valley somewhere between Austin and the quaint town of Wimberley.
Just another warm, beautiful afternoon in January.
Three views of the same boot. But so much rural life is happening around it.
That boot is nailed to the post, by the way. I checked.
Happy New Year
Boots, balls, and buildings.
Scenes from a warm and wonderful 2016 holiday season.
Happy New Year from Austin, Texas, USA.
Texas State Capital, viewed from the extension.
Acro-yoga in Zilker Park
This gorgeous sunset was captured on a glorious, 75-degree "winter" day in Austin just before Christmas.
"Joyeaux Noel" On Your Tombstone
NOEL means "birth." So why is it posted on a tombstone?
This old control tower presides over the grave of the deceased Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, which served Austin for the first century of flight. The tower is the only thing left.
Here lies Mueller Airport. 1930-1999. RIP.
The book "Lost Austin" notes that the control tower was built (as the look of it suggests) in 1961, when it was dedicated by Lyndon Johnson. The tower's aesthetic is so retro it's cool again. And it is cool.
I suspect that some old Austinites see that tower as the tombstone of an entire city and "weird" way of life that are passing away. What has become of this old airport is proof of its passing.
But "noel" does mean birth. And the area has been reborn as a massive redevelopment as the quasi-New Urban styled Mueller neighborhood. Just two miles from downtown and now filled with newly constructed homes, it's become one of most desirable areas in the city.
A local resident whose home faces the tower told me the city fends off proposals almost every week to turn the Mueller tower into a bar or club. But its design is - thankfully - too outdated and unsafe to do such a thing. No one deserves to endure the spectacle of hipsters dancing on the city's grave anyway.
Desirability is expensive, by the way. The median price of 86 homes sold in the last six months in Mueller was $515,000. So, good luck buying in there. Invite me over if you do.
Of course the "noel" on this tower was an accidental, ironic commentary on the state of Austin. It's kinda great that what was an intentionally empty and inoffensive "holiday" greeting actually tells a hard truth about a growing city.
It points to the fact that births are painful. So are rebirths. They're really happy, too. And beautiful.
Joyeux noël, Austin.
Water Babies
Something about children and water. They just ought to be together.
Fishing. Fountains. Warm sunshine. In the middle of the city. In the middle of December.
And the fact that we can revel in these things the week before Christmas is one reason I love central Texas. I miss snow and cold sometimes. But only in the abstract.
These "winter" scenes here suit me much better. A boy patiently setting up his fishing gear. A little girl fleeing her mom into this adult-proof fountain fortress.
Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow.
Parks and Recreation
Sometimes the beauty in the Texas landscape has to be sort of coaxed out of hiding.
For being so notoriously "big," its gifts are sometimes small and easy to miss.
That's because much of this fascinating state I call home is not blessed with naturally good looks. Especially as you get into the more arid parts of central and west Texas. Here it's in places ruggedly handsome but in others stark and lonesome at best.
Take this lovely scene above viewed from the north shore of the Brushy Creek Lake Park, just north of Austin. Go out around that jut of land and turn left and you'll see...well not much at all. Just a wide open view of Brushy Creek Lake with several dozens of acres of desolate lakeshore that wanders toward the enormous earthen dam on its eastern end. Needs a few thousand trees, if I'm being honest.
But in the early morning quiet, this inlet on Brushy Creek Lake is totally still. It's lovely and calming and reflective. And with those amazing live oaks twisting themselves out over the water.
The Great Egret pictured below landed just behind me on the deadfalls in this moody little bay.
Some of the small pleasures of Big Texas.
Keyhole
The secret to finding a photo-worthy scene will blow your mind: You go looking for it.
That's it.
Luckily, just about any evening drive out into the Hill Country with a camera in hand will provide photo-worthy scenes. It's added fun because the scenes don't look like what people expect of Texas. It's not what I expected anyway.
This beautiful November sunset blasting through the keyhole in this tree is seen from a bluff overlooking Lago Vista, about 15 miles west of Austin. It evokes an Appalachian view with those low ridges in the distance. But that's a chunk of our regal Lake Travis in mid-ground.