Mammoths and Caves

On our trip to Austin and San Antonio, we also went a little out of the way to check out a couple of parks. We saw a mammoth and a cavern, but not Mammoth Cavern (I don't think Austin is that close to Kentucky). We took the road north to Waco so I could put another pin on my map and visit Waco Mammoth National Monument. Sometime back in the 70's (I think), a couple guys found a strange looking bone sticking out of the ground in their cow pasture and realized it was a little bigger than a normal cow. After they took it to the university, they discovered there was a large patch of ground with more than 20 mammoth fossilized remains. Apparently back in the day North America was loaded with these large elephants, camels, and giant sloths. Somehow this group got caught in a flash flood or some other kind of quick-death event, and all ended up in a pile. So the park was formed around it in just the last few years and they built a pretty nice building over the site to preserve the fossils in the ground the way they were found. It was a small park, but pretty cool to check out.

Nolan's best mammoth impression.

Not amused about something. 

We also stopped at Longhorn Caverns State Park, though we didn't take the time to do the tour of the cavern itself. It was a beautiful day to just walk around. We climbed this observation tower and took a look at Falkenstein Castle. Apparently, a husband and wife visited Germany back in the day and were inspired by a castle there, so they came home to Texas and built their own. You can't tour it, but I think you can rent it out for weddings or events. You can see it as the tiny dot off in the distance behind Adam in the picture above.

We checked out the entrance to the cavern, but the price was a little steep and we didn't have all the time anyway.

The Hill Country is surprisingly beautiful, especially this time of year when you're not sweating to death. We'll be back, I'm sure.

Capitolize It

So we used to live near the nation's capitol in Washington, DC and we also lived in the capitol of Utah for a while, and I've been to Phoenix, Denver, Tallahassee, Atlanta, Annapolis, Helena, Santa Fe, Columbus, Oklahoma City, Richmond, and Cheyenne, as well as Oslo and London, but I only stopped at the capitol buildings in a few of those places. We'd been through Austin before, but never stopped too long, because it gets a bit crazy with the traffic. But since school at the University of Texas was out (Hook 'em Horns!), it was a little less congested. We stopped and had lunch in one of the last surviving Quizno's (on more than one occasion I'd followed the map only to find an empty, sad looking building where sandwiches were once made, but this time was a success!), and then we walked around the capitol grounds. We checked out the visitor's center and took the free tour to learn all sorts of interesting facts about the building and Texas! I think of the 20 or so people on the tour, we were probably the only ones to actually live in Texas, as most of the people seem to have been from foreign countries. Either way we learned that the capitol building is the largest of all state capitol buildings by square footage (because... Texas), it's taller than the U.S. Capitol building by 15 feet (yes, Texas, and similar to the world's tallest monument column at San Jacinto which is 12 feet taller than the Washington Monument), and the state paid the contractors who built the capitol by giving them 3 million acres of land which later became the largest cattle ranch in the world (that's a lot of longhorn beef). Yes, everything is bigger in Texas. It was an interest building, and even included a canon on the front lawn! But somehow I missed the opportunity to get a picture of that. We did get these pics though:

These kids are more Texan now than anything else...

In the rotunda hang the official portraits of every governor to serve in Texas. Whenever a new governor takes over, they hang the old governor's portrait up, but they have to rotate everyone else up the column... that's a lot of paintings to move. Here's Paul with W.

The other two hung out with the other guy who ran for president and was going to eliminate three government agencies but couldn't remember which ones. The tour guide was excited because she watched them put this one up after working here for like 14 years. She said it was the first hangin' she got to see in the capitol building.

And Paul searched all over to find Sam Houston, which he finally did. Fun fact we learned: Sam Houston is the only person to ever serve as governor of two different states, and both started with a T. There was also a large painting of the other former Tennessee politician who moved to Texas, Davy Crocket, who famously told the voters in Tennessee when they didn't re-elect him, "You may all go to Hell, and I'll go to Texas." And he did, but he didn't become governor, because he only lasted a few months before the Mexican Army killed him in San Antonio.

Yep. That's a big state with a big capitol.

Waterfalling in Austin

We got to Austin early before the Trail of Lights so we could watch Aquaman at the IMAX and stop at McKinney Falls State Park. The falls were nothing major, because I think the water level was fairly low, but there were a few cool things to see. There are a few rivers in Texas where the limestone and other components of the ground cause strange formations beneath the water. We went to a park farther north where dinosaur tracks could still be seen beneath the water because of the way the land is formed. At McKinney Falls there were some really interesting, and almost creepy formations under the water that made you feel as though you would be sucked under and disappear. I'm sure people swim in the holes all the time, but I won't be doing it any time soon, or ever. Either way it was interesting to check out on a beautiful December day!

 

Just Christmasy Things...

There's definitely a reason they call it the best time of the year! There have been plenty of things for the boys to do in December leading up to Christmas. Portland had the annual Christmas events where the boys got to go snow tubing on fake snow and eat candy, Paul had his Christmas piano recital, and we took a little trip to Austin and San Antonio to see some Christmas lights. Austin had the Trail of Lights which included a pretty lengthy walk through an assortment of light displays and all sorts of food trucks. It was definitely a colder night for a walk way up north, but we survived. Then the following day we went to the ever-popular San Antonio Riverwalk which was overly-popular the weekend before Christmas. It was a little too packed, as we at times felt like we were going to be pushed into the river. Here's what the boys have been up to:

They look to be headed in the right direction.

Gotta pause for hot chocolate. It must be done.

Waiting for Paul's turn to play at the recital.

Enjoying the post-recital treats.

And Becky finally made it to the Magnolia Silos... which was surprisingly bigger than we expected. They had a pretty large store and a lot of food trucks, plus a baker which was a little busy.

The boys liked the bean bag chairs on the lawn.

A tunnel of lights at the Trail of Lights.

Lights at the San Antonio Riverwalk.

And Adam finally got a little Christmas lighted out...