In late April 2008, Beth & Ben took a brief vacation to visit Austin, TX.

One of the stops in Austin was Mt. Bonnell. This short mountain / big hill overlooks Texas' Colorado River (not 'THE' Colorado River).

The view is pretty spectacular, as can be seen in this panoramic shot (2nd picture).

What's a trip to Austin without checking out UT? The campus was right in downtown and was a lot of fun to walk around. We saw sword (plastic) fights in the streets, had some delicious food at a local diner and bought glitter balls at the local toy shop! (Isabel loves those)

A strange little turtle pond on the campus.

Really cool trees on the UT campus.

Just one block from our hotel was the Congress Street Bridge, where over a million bats call home.

Although we'd heard tales of the sky turning black with bats, it just wasn't to be. For one, the bats had been coming out much later in the evening than usual. And also, they were keen on coming out in a line as opposed to all at once. But there were still a lot of them. The black specs under the bridge and the gray specs in the sky are the bats heading out to feed.

Hamilton Pool is a very unique rock and water formation about 25 miles West of Austin. The water was a little chilly, but there were a few brave enough to go swimming.