Sightseeing in Austin with our exchange student
September 16, 2019 We have a young exchange student from Italy living with us this school year, and part of the fun of that for us (and hopefully for her) is dragging her around Austin to see, well, everything. The pink granite dome of the Texas Capitol beckoned us one ...
Welcome to Colorado and High Plains Environmental Center: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
June 23, 2019 Just two hours away by plane but a mile high in altitude, Denver is a world away from subtropical Austin thanks to its short growing season (freezes can occur as late as June and as early as September), low humidity (ahhh!), and aridity (just 15 inches of ...
Wild for wildflowers at Mueller’s Southwest Greenway
June 10, 2019 A week ago I buzzed around Mueller, a sustainable, mixed-use neighborhood built on the site of Austin’s old Mueller Airport. When the concrete runways and asphalt parking lots were jackhammered out, acres of blackland prairie soil saw the sun for the first time in decades. What an ...
Tau Ceti mural in downtown Austin
June 09, 2019 Austin’s excellent mural scene just got a big boost with the addition of Josef Kristofoletti‘s Tau Ceti. The spectacular, spectrum-based mural by the Austin muralist fills a formerly blank corner of a bland parking garage at Brazos and 2nd Street, creating a new hotspot for selfie snapping ...
De-light-ful spring break art day
March 13, 2019 Home for spring break, my daughter and I made an art day of it yesterday here in Austin, first visiting the Lance Letscher exhibit at Stephen L. Clark Gallery. Outside I snapped an artful shot of my own: a Texas mountain laurel’s dangling, grape-soda-scented flowers and my ...
Bigger than life jackalope on N. Lamar
February 23, 2019 A bigger-than-life bounder crouches on North Lamar Boulevard. “Bigger than life” may not be quite accurate, of course, seeing as the jackalope is a mythical beast of Texas legend. Created by Ion Art for Red Velvet Events, the horned hare stands 18 feet tall, fabricated from rusty ...
Streetside gardens, colorful murals on Austin’s South Congress Ave
January 12, 2019 South Congress Avenue, SoCo, a street of eclectic shops and restaurants just south of downtown that epitomizes “weird,” welcoming Austin and converts tourists into residents. Fewer and fewer of those shops remain now that Austin has grown so expensive, but it’s still a playful, appealing, and increasingly ...
Sculptural light installations glow along Austin’s Waller Creek during 5th annual Creek Show
November 19, 2018 Last Saturday, on the final day of Creek Show 2018, hundreds of tents floated sinuously above downtown Austin’s Waller Creek, glowing orange and purple like fairy lights. To reach the start of this temporary art exhibition sponsored by Waller Creek Conservancy, which is remaking the long-neglected creek ...
Forgiveness sculpture and Austin trees
November 02, 2018 While at ZACH Theater recently to see a show, I noticed a curious sculpture on the grounds: a rabbit cradling a greyhound. Prey forgiving the hunter? It’s a sculpture by English artist Sophie Ryder. Nearby an enormous bur oak, one of our Texas native oaks, stood as ...
Mount Rushmore musings during Sturgis Motorcycle Rally
September 14, 2018 When my daughter and I set off on a hastily planned, pre-college road trip through the Great American West, we didn’t know thousands of motorcyclists participating in the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally would be accompanying us, roaring along the scenic highways in their black tees, denim, and leather, ...
On the trail in Eldorado Canyon near Boulder, Colorado
September 01, 2018 Two weeks ago, my youngest left for college. Three weeks ago we spontaneously took a Great American West road trip up through Colorado, South Dakota, and Wyoming, seeking out lonely but epic scenery. For me it was also, of course, about putting off the blues of her ...
Houston, capital of Southern-cool art?
August 24, 2018 Detail of Dixie Friend Gay’s mosaic Wild Wonderland in Houston’s Midtown Park Speeding away from the sleepy South Carolina town I grew up in, I rolled into megatropolis Houston at the nadir of the mid-1980s oil crash. Local shops were shuttered, regional banks were going out of ...
Stonehenge near the solstice brings out the Druids
August 18, 2018 On a chilly, windy morning in mid-June, a few days before the summer solstice, we visited Stonehenge during our family vacation. Was it just a bunch of old rocks? Absolutely not. Visiting Stonehenge is a fascinating glimpse into the lives, beliefs, and mad rock-moving skills of prehistoric ...
Roses, swans, and ravens: Rambling in London’s parks and Tower of London
July 08, 2018 We arrived in London in mid-June, where we stayed two nights and spent our days eating fish and chips and Indian food, sightseeing, and rambling in London’s excellent parks. (We also visited the magnificent Kew Gardens, which I’ll share in my next post.) London’s public parks made ...
Paris parks, pigeons, and masterpieces
June 28, 2018 After Venice earlier this June, we spent 5 nights in Paris, a city I hadn’t seen in 29 years. It is as beautiful and vibrant as I remembered. My husband took these twilight images from the top of the Arc de Triomphe, looking out over the city ...
Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin” brightens University of Texas campus
March 07, 2018 Resembling squares of lime, cherry, berry blue, and grape Jell-O, the glass-block windows of artist Ellsworth Kelly’s new artwork, Austin, are colorful, playful, and flat-out fun. You kind of want to slurp them up, or stick your finger in them to see if they jiggle. A new ...
