Our first really nice weather day getting up to 74F and sunny. Austin is where Lance Armstrong hangs his hat. If you are a big cycling fan you will undoubtedly know about Lance. In a sport where doping was rampant, he managed to evade detection for years until it finally caught up to him and he was stripped of his 7 yellow Tour De France jerseys. Even though he was a cheater, it was pretty incredible that a guy managed to survive cancer and come back to compete in this elite class event.

Austin was also the home of blues legend Stevie Ray Vaughn from his teenage years up until his tragic helicopter crash death when he was in his early 30's. He had managed to beat his substance addictions and was in the prime of his career at the time of his death. At 1 point he mentored Canadian rock performer Colin James so his influence is still alive.

So we kicked into tourist mode today and decided to take the bikes and go for a ride around Lady Bird Lake, which is the dam controlled Colorado River, that runs through downtown Austin. There's a multi-use crushed stone trail that runs along both shores of the lake so we did about 16 kms. There are various statues and memorials to musicians around the trail as Austin claims to be the Live Music Capital of The World. They were actually getting ready for a huge Christmas festival in the main park which, as luck usually has it with us, will not be running until we have left the area.

The city is very pro fitness and there were lots of people running, walking and riding the trials. The photo for today's post is an art piece dedicated to the bicycle. There are actually 1254 bikes making up this piece. At first glance the photo looks like some weird special effect but it's a really neat piece.

https://www.thecontemporaryaustin.org/exhibitions/ai-weiwei/

We also took Finn to this huge dog park right on the lake. We figured he'd be ready to run around and make some new friends but, he just sucked around us and, aside from scaring the crap out of a couple of squirrels he chased, who apparently had no idea how fast whippets run, he really didn't socialize much with any other dogs. There was even a greyhound there but he wasn't too interested. He does like other whippets and recognizes them whenever he sees 1 but apparently greyhounds don't qualify for his acceptance as anything special.

One other attraction of interest is the bat bridge that crosses the river. From March to October, more than 1.5 million bats come out at dusk from the Bridge and go on the hunt for insects. I'm not sure why this bridge is special as it looks like many other bridges, but it seems to be Bat Mecca.

https://freefuninaustin.com/how-to-see-bats-in-austin/