Walking Downtown

Off we go on a walk to Stevie.

Walking to Stevie (the wonderful statue of local Blues legend Stevie Ray Vaughn on the south side of Lady Bird Lake) is one of our "standard" walks.

We almost always cross the pedestrian bridge over Shoal Creek at Third Street (see above) and walk through the Seaholm Plaza.

Seaholm Plaza, where a power plant once was.

We continue down the steps in Seaholm Plaza to Second Street.

Down the stairs to Second Street.

Then it's across the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge.

Across the Pfluger.

And over to the trail by Vic Mathias Shores.

Along the trail with the skyline across the lake.

We take an obligatory picture with Stevie.

Stevie.

Sometimes we turn around. But today we briefly went to the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel and then continued to the Congress Bridge.

Steps to Congress Bridge.

Crossing the Congress Bridge is quite a view.

Capitol View.

One has to pass Veracruz All Natural without getting a taco.

Mural by Veracruz.

Today we walked on the south side of César Chavez to Colorado as we headed home.

Walking toward the Buford Tower.

Along the way today we noticed some Elon protest.

Elon.

We also noticed that there is a drag brunch at Jo's. Drag won't be allowed at The University of Texas. So we need more drag everywhere.

Drag Brunch at Jo's. Second Sunday of each month.

And it is spring!

Redbuds are the harbinger of Spring there but all kinds of things are blooming and budding. 

Life Cycle

I was driving down Jackson Avenue near Mopac a few days ago and saw a vulture trying to get a road kill squirrel out of the street so he'd be safe eating it. The squirrel still looked pretty fresh and the bird kept stepping on his tail.

What else is happening in my world? The city dug a hole in my yard, broke pipes for the sprinkler system and filled up the hole without finding the leak. I'm now suspicious that the leak is under a driveway. The whole futiule destructive affair took all day and the backhoe had a flat tire (which took hours to fix) and then kept dying. They finally got dirt in the hole and put some cones around it. The cones were gone by morning taken, no doubt, by young hooligans. Muddy tennis shoe prints led south.

My mouth problems come and go. Sometimes I feel almost one hundred percent. I have avoided taking any drugs (save alcohol of course) since Sunday.

We went to a party last night at the most amazing house. Good champagne was poured. Excellent food was passed and there was a display of meats, cheeses and patés that was amazing. The house had a library that was as big as the condo I'll move into with a higher ceiling. A ladder rail gave access to the highest of the lovely wood shelves. The house was full of art. The party was to introduce the people doing the 21C Museum Hotel project here. All the museum bigwigs and Heritage society people and lots of other luminaries were there. Can't say how we got invited, but it was worth it to see the beautiful house which is tucked away off a street I travel often. The use of art and native stone made this place a beautiful retreat. While valet parking was a challenge, the house itself absorbed a huge crowd. FFP enjoyed a long talk with Gary Cartwright. At one point we found ourselves in the media room where a trio was entertaining a very few people. Michael Barnes sat down to talk about the difficulty of making all the parties and events he must write about. I wouldn't dream of having to do it like he does. Although I'm often glad to be many of the places I bump into him. I'm always amazed at how many people FFP has written about in his column. Last night we bumped into an artist he'd written about several years ago. I suddenly remembered seeing her work at the house of someone else he'd written about. FFP often has the biographies of the people around us in his brain. That doesn't keep us safe from bumping into someone who seems to know us and know when they met us who doesn't seem familiar at all. Disconcerting.

I had lunch yesterday with a friend of mine who has retired but writes plays. He keeps up with this blog and so I don't have to catch him up too much on what's happening in our usually once a month lunches and we plunge right into weighty discussions.

A River Runs Through It

FFP is maintaining the home fires. I'm visiting my nearest relatives (sister, brother-in-law, two nieces and their husbands, three great nephews and a great niece). My sister lives in a largely uninteresting sprawl of subdivisions west of Denver. However, on my daily walks I can see the South Platte roaring through a natural area. Otherwise, it's been a bunch of amusing babies and making up tasks for the five- and seven-year-old kiddos and helping them assemble Lego toys.

I'm not sure how it counts in the annals of downsizing but a van load of stuff is staying at my sister's (ground zero of the need for downsizing) and with my niece with the boys.