Adventures with Nicci (Shady Grove and Natural Bridge Caverns)

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We were delighted to have my friend and former colleague, Nicci, come all the way from the UK to visit us. It was her first visit to Texas, so we had a great time showing her around Austin and the surrounding area. We really packed a lot into four and a half days!

She arrived about 4 pm Friday. We'd decided to be kind and didn't plan too much in advance that night, as we were waiting to see how she was coping with the jet-lag. Once she got here we found out she has a step counter in her watch and due to the 10 hour flight she was behind for that day...she also admitted to being willing to stay up for the next few hours....so Aaron had the idea to walk to dinner...just a short stroll...erm....well actually a 2 mile hike through the woods! :) He then gallantly offered to drive and meet us there (so he could drive us back...and conveniently avoid the hike!), but I was having none of that and insisted we get the bus back. So we all walked to Shady Grove.

Walking down into the Greenbelt

We've had a lot of rain lately so Barton Creek was flowing and watching/listing to the water cascading over the rocks made for a lovely walk.

Barton Creek overflowing into Barton Springs Pool (it's usually dry at this end of the pool!)

We walked to dinner in beautiful sunshine, but after dinner the sky darkened and unleashed a downpour upon us as we waited for the bus!

Getting wet at the bus stop!

Saturday's forecast was dubious. It had been predicting thunderstorms, but since then changed to much less chance of rain, but given our experience the night before we decided to go with an undercover activity. We toured the Natural Bridge Caverns, and due to so much rain lately got the unusual experience of seeing an aquifer.

This is the natural bridge that the caves get their name from
Beautiful columns
Aquifer (they had to close a section of the tour)


The second cave we toured previously had no access to the surface (they dug wells to find it) so there were no bats and more soda straws/stalactites hanging from the ceiling stayed intact.




Between the two cave tours we found a great tacqueria for lunch named 'Grumpy's Mexican Cafe'!

In the evening we went to one of our favourite comedy shows at the Alamo Drafthouse - Master Pancake, show of 'Space Jam'. At these shows they play a movie (in this case Space Jam) and comedians make jokes about the movie and do skits of it. They are hilarious!

Comments

Anonymous said…
amazing stalactites.
13 June 2016 at 10:51
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