Smitty's Market

One of the great barbecue joints in Lockhart, Texas. A friend said it was the best but he failed to warn me about being baked alive by the fire. That closeup of the pit is the line when you're dumb enough like me to stand next to it. This is in the summer and I sweated like a dog and a friend cut out and let me hold the line til I was past the fire. The worker dude in the red t-shirt taking orders looked like he was going to pass out. When I came back in March the fire didn't seem so bad and my friends didn't abandon me this time. Quite the entrance with black soot caked on the walls.

Gravestones in the Park

You can see the fence protecting the graves. It's in a park in South Austin. Must be a small family plot that they refused to allow to be exhumed and moved by the city. Its on the top of a hill that isnt the most desirable property either. One person is marked as being born back in the early 1800s. Makes you think there must be all kinds of others buried in these areas that don't have family or money to protect and preserve them and probably were buried in more desirable and profitable land.

Horse Trainer's Cabin

The remains of a ranch hand's cabin at McKinney Falls State Park. I posted about the mansion back in August. I wonder if they made it out of stone to keep the house from being ruined by floods. The plantation house was high out of the floodplain. I remember biking up the hillside to get to it. This domicile is much closer to the creek. The horse trainer named John Van Hagen left the ranch for New York in 1873 - the same year the owner named Thomas McKinney died. Murder? Who said murder?

Totems

Stephenson Nature Preserve And Outdoor Education Center was a place I discovered while Geocaching around Austin. Little pieces of nature pop up all over. I was astounded to find these buggers hanging out. Like many pics on this blog they make you wonder what the backstory is. Who does this?

Floodplains and Parks

Hiking around Austin you realize when you're in the floodplain of a creek. You see piles of debris stacked against trees. And debris stuck in branches many feet in the air. And little ponds. Good place to put hike and bike trails.

Window A/C

A window A/C unit is what we had in Wisconsin in one room for when it was really hot. We have the same idea here in my Austin middle school. Bad luck for the few teachers who get this run down A/C system. We've had A/C guys out for years fixing theses units. We're so tough in Austin we don't need clean water or air conditioning.

Fire Hydrant

I'm pretty sure part of the solution to fixing broken pipes in the streets of Austin is to blast the fire hydrant. But apparently cleaning up the dirt in the street after flooding it is not the job of the city. I'm sure the water just washed it away in a safe and non-polluting way. My street looked like a creek for awhile. Conservation and protecting the environment is Austin's motto.