The Trail of Lights

Last Thursday Madelyn and I went to Zilker park in downtown Austin to visit the Trail of Lights. The Trail Of Lights is a popular Austin Christmas destination. A bunch of local businesses each take a tree, and the surrounding area, and decorate it with lights or other type of "Christmas" decorations. I am not sure where an armadillo playing the maracas and banjo falls under "Christmas" decorations, but it was entertaining none the less.

This was the first time we had been to the Trail of Lights after a failed attempt to go last year. This year my sister is in town for the holidays so we all packed into the car (after eating at Madelyn's favorite restaurant.... Matt's El Rancho), and hit the trail. The weather was actually a little chilly (50 degrees) which made the experience even more festive.

Here are some pictures from the event.

(Madelyn and my sister in front of an awesome lighted tree)


(Everyone liked the star tunnel)

Austin has these things called Moonlight Towers (This is a really interesting link. Good history lesson). The city of Austin is the only remaining city in the world to have these Moonlight towers, and one of them serves as the Zilker park Christas tree. The big thing to do is to walk into the middle of the tree and spin. This made both of us extremely dizzy, but was really neat, completely disorienting, and cool. My mom said that this is the largest man made Christmas tree in the U.S.. I have no evidence to support that fact, but I wouldn't doubt it, the thing is really big, and you can see it for at least 3 miles in each direction. Also, the tree is in Texas.... and I don't know if you are aware, but EVERYTHING is bigger in Texas....

(I had to lay on the ground to get the entire tree in)

(Do we look a little dizzy? We had just stopped spinning)