Goodbye Erin!

I just wanted to send out a quick blog. We did a lot of great stuff here in Austin but it is time to leave. We are leaving at 8am tomorrow morning and heading to Carlsbad, NM. I am not sure how much time we will have to update there so... we are totally safe and having a great time. We did fix the car and at a great price. The guy personally drove to the parts store so that I would have the car in time to leave for NM Tuesday(with everything being closed for the weekend and then the holiday). He took out some of the scratches, reattached the bumper and replaced the turnsignal with only a $70 labor fee.

We went to a natural pool the other day that was gorgeous! They cemented off a portion of a local river that seperated the river from this section that was half handmade and half natural. Because of the cement, it built a dame that formed a natural pulse into the other section of the river. Although we didn't do it, they had toobing and kayaking that I will definitly do next time I am around.

We explored some more food (like always) and that was really hit or miss. Obviously, every food trailer served the most delishious food anyone can find.... anywhere, anytime.

We played wall-ball one night across the street and did some group dates to places like tamale house(again!) and CiCi's pizza(that is as disguising at you would imagine from the commercials).

From the last post I mentioned the comic Snakepit. He recently came out with a new book that I have been in search for but everyone is out of stock. I had a secret fantasy of running into him where I can get his new book and then eat from taco trailers together. I'm kind of glad that didn't happen though because I would take my jokingly obsessive posts to a whole new level haha.

Austin has the largest urban bat colony. hundreds of thousands of bat live under the Congress bridge and fly out at dusk. Me and Allie broke away from Erin and he roommates and walked along the bridge until dusk. While waiting I met a photographer named Ernst Bruening that is doing the very same thing as me but the opposite. He is a from San Francisco and traveling to New York. The conversation with him was funny in the most snobbish nerdy way. I will try to write it as true to the conversation as I can:
CM: What kinda of camera is that (knowing it was an expensive Leica rangefinder)
EB: It's a rangefinder. It takes something called film.
CM: I'm a photographer..... I have a Hassleblad.
EB: .....OH! Those are great cameras. What kinda of work do you do?
CM: I do more conceptual work(thinking he was a man with a lot of money but not a large passion for art photography).
EB: OH I do similar stuff. I did my MFA in San Francisco (A really great school).
CM:......OH

That didn't translate well haha. Eitherway he ended up being a great guy and we both exchanged advice on traveling. After that a guy tried to sell us a glow in the dark light saber and I was so excited(as was Allie). He was a total rip off artist as they were 5bucks each! After he realized we weren;t buying anything he was nice enough to tell us we wouldn't see the bats from where we were on the bridge so we ran down the bridge and caught them just in time. Best spot on the bridge. They werent anything like I could of expected. Instead of some dramtic scene similar to a Batman movie, they all moved in a line. They had their own pulse and momentum and I was really kind of interesting. The crowd around the area was similar to Penn Station. Just the sheer volume of people made me expect these bats had some kind of show. They were going to bust out of the tunnel signing autographs and doing some kind of twirls like a airplane showman. Instead they acted like we werent there. Infact, they probably found us more of a nuicense than any sort of flattering gesture. They new what they were doing. wait their turn, follow the path out he tunnel as fast as they could in hopes some flash photographer wouldnt blind their already horrible eyes and go get some food. It was cool. It was really cool.

So off to the caverns in New Mexico and I think I will be shooting a lot more photographs from here on out. hipefully I will get a cool photo when we drive through roswell at the end of the week!

I'm not going to spellcheck this... I miss spelled to much stuff