Holy paddlers, Batman!

When there's no water in the rivers (or hardly any) thank goodness we still have lakes.

Our group of paddling friends had the inspired idea last weekend to paddle on Town Lake in Austin (it's officially called Lady Bird Lake now, but old habits die hard). And, lovely as the lake is on its own, there is another attraction.

We timed our put-in so that we would get to the Congress Avenue "Bat Bridge" and see the thousands (millions?) of critters take off on their nightly hunting foray.

What a neat experience! Even though it meant that our return journey would be in the dark, which was rather exciting. (Fortunately there was a good-sized chunk of moon to see by.)

BTW, thanks to our friend Larry for this photo of the bats; none of the ones I took of the exodus came out very well. Notice the crowds of people on the bridge as well as the bats leaving it. This is quite a civic attraction!

Although I was disappointed in most of my bat photos, you can see some clouds of them in the distance in this one, giving you some idea of how large this colony is:

Look close to the horizon and up along the left-hand side

Great as the bat-show was, there were all kinds of other attractions along the river. We saw a rather amazing array of watercraft converging on the Congress Bridge, in addition to our large group of canoes and kayaks. 

we were all intrigued by these cycle-like paddle craft...they were making very good time
 (thanks again to Larry for this photo)

'sup with these SUPs? they seem to be very popular

we didn't see any families of ducklings following these swan boats and eating peanuts
(this is another one of Larry's photos)

The weirdest thing we saw (and of course there has to be weirdness in Austin) was this participant in the Cow Parade, masquerading as a bat hanging from the upstream side of the Congress Bridge (the bats leave from the downstream side). What can you say about something like this? (except, thanks again to Larry, whose cow shot turned out better than any of mine)

A special bonus for us was our kids joining us on this fun expedition. Sally was my canoe partner, allowing me, for the first time ever, to be the steersman in the back of the canoe. (It was easy enough to do on the flat waters of the lake, but I probably won't be trying it any time soon on moving water.) Of course she made sure we had plenty of appropriate beverages.

Hal used my sit-on-top and was kind enough to give our canoe a tow almost all the way back to the take-out after dark. Thanks, Hal!

What a perfect ending to a weird, fun, unique, and altogether satisfying paddle

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[You can see more pictures of Town Lake, from the shore, in this Bridges to London blog post.]