A Slight Miscalculation

When I suggested in my last post my intent to get out to take pictures a couple of times this week, I was aware Austin's in the middle of South by Southwest this week and that traffic in different parts of town would be horrible. I took that into account and assumed I could steer clear of the festival with little effort. What I did not count on was that this also spring break. Of course, that means all the places around town that I had planned to shoot were inundated - in the middle of the day in the middle of the week - with moms and kids, high schoolers, college kids. In short, all the mini-Austinites I'd expected to have been in school.

It's not a problem; they'll be back in school next week and the moms will be doing whatever they do during the week. Anyway, I did make it up to Mount Bonnell to check out the accessibility. I was satisfied with that and took a few pictures, but that's when I first noticed the surfeit of people tramping around my mountain (such as it is). Yes, these pictures, looking northwest from Mount Bonnell are very similar. Just around the bend is the Pennybacker Bridge that was featured in my previous post. Farther upstream is Lake Austin, Mansfield Dam, and Lake Travis, etc. etc. etc. But there's a bird (a hawk or a buzzard) in the lower picture and the boats have moved.

Not yet understanding why they all happened to be there, I got back in the truck and continued on to Mayfield Park where I expected peacocks and koi ponds. Instead, I found a full parking lot of Suburbans - Spring Break again. All the pre-teens in the crowd gave it away. I made one last stab at it by going to Redbud Isle. Full parking lot with pickup trucks and Subarus. Being one of the few parks in Austin where dogs don't have to be on a leash, Redbud Isle normally has a dozen or so cars in the lot, not traffic backed up waiting to turn in. I could see where this was going. I cut my losses.

So, I'll probably go back into hiding for the remainder of the week. I'm not really agoraphobic, though I have no particular use for crowds. I like driving too, but not heavy traffic. On both counts, I'd just as soon wait till next week.