Road Trip

Memorial Day weekend found us on the road with long-time friends, heading south to the Hill country. We wandered down past Cleburne, cut through Hico, home of the Koffe Kup Kafe, whose initials always prompt the discussion of the affiliation with a KKK from another era and less tolerant time. Stopped in Hamilton in a very small, hole-in-wall BBQ place that advertised fried pies. The judge panel decided they were baked and not anything to write home about.
Then on down 281 to Lampasas, then jump west to Alamosa Vineyards for a wine tasting, loved the Texas Port and my bride loved the "amigo White", friendly place with friendly Australian Shepherds, which look like dogs who are trying to imitate appaloosa horses. Swung through Llano, then over to another vineyard near Horseshoe Bay, not worth going back to, unless you like really dry wines. We had one member of our party who loves museums and art, so we stopped outside Llano and studied the historical marker commemorating a group of settlers who defeated a group of Comanches "thrice their number" I had visions of well-armed settlers and natives with home-made bows and arrows, I would bet on the settlers. Oh well, they say history is written by the winners.
From there through Fredericksburg, a really bustling German village celebrating a "crawfish festival" It was a little disconcerting to try and reconcile the divergent cultures, but I guess even the German folks get tired of brauts and kraut.
Spent the night in Kerrville at a Hampton Inn with an aging motorcycle gang.
Sunday we met up with the rest of our group for a day of "culture" which means we went to the Capital...on Congress, and learned all sorts of stuff. We stood on the star in the atrium and sang a few phrases of a hymn, pretty cool.
Then the best part of the trip for me.
We stood for an hour and waited for the Mexican freetail bats fly out from underneath the Congress Ave bridge. A million and half bats all wedged into the seams of a bridge stretching only a couple of hundred yards. We waited and waited, people gathered, our traveling companions struck up a conversation with a couple from San Juan Capistrano. Then the bats started from the far end of the bridge, streaming out in a long undulating line towards the gathering dusk in the east, and they just kept pouring out. As the column moved towards us we realized that the bats under our section of the bridge were swirling, like a whirlpool in a stream, spinning faster and faster, occasionally slinging one out, who had to make his way back into the vortex, then joining the column that now stretched out of sight into the distance.
Stunning in the event, making me wonder how this had evolved. What forces made them act this way? Was it simply their nature?
It affirmed to me again that life is not random, it has random events, but the "orderliness" of our world can only be the work of an orderly mind. Here I am three days later and still a little awestruck over this natural event. It was nice to be surprised again, remembrances of a childhood spent being a little awestruck over rainstorms, Carlsbad Caverns, stunning size of the ocean, night sky, morning break, and a west Texas breeze, holding a promise of changing weather. There is something in these moments that is arboreal, naturalistic, profound. God in his glory of creation, God at his best.
What a weekend, friends, fellowship, fun, and fascination.
Godspeed.
Don