Lifer...Flower Center and the Government box

One of the reasons I had to hustle back yesterday was to make a meeting in Austin at this Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on some items pertaining to my Federal permits. I have never been there before so decided that by gum this was a grand opportunity to educate myself, see the place and have a ball. The last time I was at the Wildflower Center was when it was under the radio towers just north of Platt's Road at Hornsby, so let's see , hmm, ....that's been like 5-6 years ago :-) Even met Lady Bird there !

I greatly feared the drive into Austin, but got the directions off Google and with white knuckles made my way into town. I might as well have been in Denver for all I could tell. Nothing looked like anything I could remember and Slaughter @ Brodie Lane totally toasted my mind. It was a 42 mile drive to the center but I got there alive. I am VERY glad that they call it the Wildflower CENTER, for it was 100% completely different than anything I expected.

For all these years I have heard about this place, I had painted up a pretty picture of it in my head. A huge tract of land devoted to wildflowers and native plants. A deep limestone canyon or something draped with Maiden Hair Fern, a rambling brook all sorts of fancy trails towered over by Texas Oak and ancient Ashe Juniper etc. Heck I wore my hiking boots, wore my camera, brought my water bottle and figured I had just as good a chance as anyone else out there to find the FOS Golden-cheeked Warbler! In short I had in my mind a place that was a bit like Turkey Creek with a parking lot and a place that sold potted plants and T-Shirts next to rows of Port-o-potties or something......I am not sure what I thought but it sure as hell was not what I expected what was there......For sure I saw no Golden-cheekeds. I remember dropping of Dan Brooks near the entrance off of Loop 1 years ago when that road was under construction as his wife worked there but I did not go in.

Don't get me wrong here now, I think the place is wonderful. I found it delightful and interesting. There were none of the small fields of planted wildflowers that I thought there would be like out at there Fredricksberg but there was a lot of neat sculpture and turtles so tame I thought they were fake until I tossed a tiny pebble on it. Noticed that their Mexican Plum is not even budding whilst mine is in damn near full bloom....Elevational thing I guess. Everything mostly was dead and shrivelled up there, I suspect from that real cold weather a few weeks back. But there is some pretty rock work and art and they sell all sorts of stuff if you want it, way more than I had a chance to look at. I was glad I went and finally saw it but can never be be what I always imagined it was again. I would recommend a visit to anyone going into that part of town for sure.

That is the other thing, somehow I had it in my mind this was way out there somewhere. At least a few miles out of town. It will soon be a downtown park it appears the way Austin is growing. San Antonio has it's Brackenridge Park and Zoo. Austin needs it's Hornsby and Wildflower Center. I can very much appreciate all of the many 100'000's of dollars and volunteer hours it must have taken to put the wildflower center together.

I would not mind seeing it when the flowers there are in bloom. It was a very busy place there today though I was in the auditorium most of the afternoon. I went 3-4 hours early ,,,,Should have researched it better.

Ladd, I finally put that TV up on a table thingy and hooked up the government converter box. After piddling with it a while it came on. All it seems to have though is low budget Latino comedies and soap operas and I don't speak Spainish and Foxx...And I can't understand stupid. Oh well there is a damn TV here at least for a few days. Hope these come out right, I'm tired and hurrying.

Brush