Walking Austin: 33 Walking Tours Exploring Historical Legacies, Musical Culture, and Abundant Natural Beauty - Softcover

Llewellin, Charlie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 089997953X ISBN 13: 9780899979533

Publisher: Wilderness Press, 2019

Synopsis

Get to Know the Most Vibrant and Historic Neighborhoods in Austin, Texas!

Grab your walking shoes, and become an urban adventurer as Charles Llewellin leads you on 33 unique walking tours in this comprehensive guidebook. Explore beautiful neighborhoods, historic locations, public art, and, of course, live music. Soak up the city’s history, culture, and outdoor beauty.

Find peace and comfort as you wind along Lady Bird Lake. Take in the glorious sights atop Mount Bonnell. Browse the one-of-a-kind markets of South Congress. Walking Austin guides you to mouthwatering brisket, refreshing swimming holes, world-class museums, and some of the best views in all of Texas.

Each self-guided tour includes full-color photographs, a map, and need-to-know details like distance, difficulty, parking, and public transit. Route summaries make each walk easy to follow, and a “Points of Interest” section lists the highlights of every tour. The walks’ commentaries include such topics as architecture and local trivia, plus tips on where to grab a bite, have a drink, and shop. Walking Austin provides the perfect path for a weekend or an after-work ramble. So find a route that appeals to you, and walk Austin!

About this title

About the Author:

Charlie Llewellin has lived in Austin since 1991. He is a writer and photographer who has contributed to a variety of publications, including cover stories for National Magazine Award winner Texas Monthly and Austin Monthly. He is the author of the latest edition of 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: San Antonio and Austin and Explore Austin Outdoors: Hiking, Biking, Paddling & More, both published by AdventureKEEN.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
The First Lady’s Legacy

• BOUNDARIES: Mopac Expy. (TX 1), LaCrosse Ave.
• DISTANCE: 2.2 miles (to complete all the trails)
• DIFFICULTY: Easy
• PARKING: At the center and on LaCrosse Ave.
• PUBLIC TRANSIT: None

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a whole lot more than its name implies, though the name is probably better branding than something like the Ecological Research and Design and Plant Conservation Center. Wildflower center experts provided advice after the Blanco River floods of 2016; invented the trademarked SkySystem, a soil made from recycled materials for green roofs; and of course continue to develop ecological roadsides, continuing the work set in motion by Lady Bird Johnson’s crowning achievement, the Highway Beautification Act, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015. Johnson’s best-known quote is rendered in metal at the entrance: “My special cause, the one that alerts my interest and quickens the pace of my life, is to preserve the wildflowers and native plants that define the regions of our land―to encourage and promote their use in appropriate areas, and thus help pass on to generations in waiting the quiet joys and satisfactions I have known since my childhood.” The gardens, buildings, and café have a gentle Zen-like charm, and it would be easy to let a couple of hours fly by in quiet appreciation of all that is on offer. But beware: you may find yourself drawn Alice-like down a rabbit hole of enthusiasm for Texas’s native plants. On a practical note, bring a hat and sunscreen, especially if you plan to complete the longer hikes, where there is little shade.

Walk Description

The center allows for all levels of interaction. You can pop in to smell the flowers, visit the store, and enjoy a cup of coffee in the café, or you could immerse yourself in guided tours and classes in drawing and botany. The grounds are helpful to those who want to learn more about the native flora, as they are arranged as a series of microenvironments that include savanna, woodland, and a host of tiny examples of different types of gardens. It’s a small Disneyland of natural Texas, which we can divide into four areas: the Central Complex, the Central Gardens, the garden trail, and two longer trails of about a mile each that explore the managed areas and wildlands that make up the rest of these 300 or so acres on the plain between Slaughter and Bear Creeks. 

From the parking lot you walk up a gravel path to a payment kiosk through scrub that obscures the buildings before you. The grand entrance is revealed when you reach the kiosk. A wide stone path leads to an arch by a pond. The lovely buildings, in what I would call modern Tuscan monastic, are by Overland Partners and are designed to reflect regional architecture. They manage to be at once a little austere and welcoming, as befits an institution whose main purpose is education. Sandstone arches reflect Texas’s Spanish heritage; limestone buildings, the classic German Hill Country style; and tin roofs and barns, the modern era. 

Through the arch is the Central Complex, where you will find the gift shop and café and a hall dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Johnson. Beyond this rectangular courtyard are the Central Gardens that are the center’s heart. Everything is labeled, and plants are set out in 23 themed gardens that demonstrate the enormous variety of flora in the state and provide inspiration for your own garden. Keep going, and you pass through the Pollinator Habitat Garden and onto the trail that leads to the Luci and Ian Family Garden, which was added in 2014 as a place where families can interact with nature. This path winds back to the Central Complex, and you can also explore two longer loops, the Woodland Trail and the Savanna Meadow Trail. 

Cross the main area between the Central Complex and the Central Gardens to find the entrance to the longer trails. The John Barr Trail is a short loop that connects to the nearly mile-long Restoration Research Trail. If you have time for only one trail, choose the Mollie Steves Zachry Arboretum, where you will find examples of many common Texas trees. At last you will be able to distinguish a live oak from a cedar elm! 

I can’t recommend the wildflower center highly enough, whether you want a peaceful environment in which to chill quietly or are ready to really get to know the flowers, bushes, and trees of Texas. If you love it too, consider volunteering here, or support the center with an annual membership.

Backstory: Lady Bird Johnson

Her nurse declared that Claudia Alta Taylor, born in Karnack, Texas, in 1912, was “as pretty as a ladybird,” and the nickname stuck. The East Texas native graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s degree in art and was studying to be a reporter when she met rising politician Lyndon Johnson. She used her status as first lady to fight for women’s rights and was a pioneering environmentalist, advocating for open spaces and greenbelts as an integral part of urbanization. Lady Bird was galvanized by her love of the natural world, and the results of her lifelong work can be seen not just in the roadside wildflower displays that are such a feature of springtime in Texas, but also in city parks all over the country. She planted the seed in Ann Butler’s mind for the transformation of the banks of the Colorado in Austin (see “Lady Bird Lake Boardwalks,” page 110). Her ideas have gone mainstream in the world of urban planning, and the city has many fine examples (most covered in this book) of green spaces that provide delight and respite for humans, and homes for plants and animals. The wildflower center, which she opened in 1982 and which moved from East Austin to this location in 1995, is a living memorial to this remarkable human being whose ideas are still inspiring people to make the world better.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wilderness Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 089997953X
• ISBN 13: 9780899979533
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200