ANTIQUE ROSE EMPORIUM

Be sure and visit Antique Rose Emporium ( http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com ) in San Antonio, 7561 Evers Road, 210-651-4565, open daily. Tour grounds and beautiful displays garden and pick up some hardy antique roses for your own garden.

On spring calender for them are following. Fore more information call Robbi at 210-651-4565: April 23, An Herb Affair, 1-4 p.m. The Comal Master Gardeners will give demonstrations, recipes, samples and ideas.

April 30, Children’s Day in Garden, 1-4 p.m. This time Bexar County Master Gardeners are incharge with hands-on fun and educational activities with garden and outdoor themes for little ones.

While in area, in San Antonio you’ll find ALAMO, SEAWORLD, FIESTA TEXAS, MISSION TRAIL, and RIVERWALK.

AUSTIN AREA

Over in Austin, state capital, you’ll find 42 more acres of wildflowers at LADY BIRD JOHNSON WILDFLOWER RANCH (http://www.wildflower.org/ ) and beautiful UMLAUF SCULTURE GARDEN & MUSEUM (http://www.umlaufsculpture.org/ ), one of my favorites for a quiet afternoon.

Umlauf, whose works are featured in Smithsonian Institutition and N. Y.’s Metropolitan Museum, taught art at UT and donated his home, studio and many works to city of Austin which created museum. Look among statues for face of his former UT student, Farah Fawcett. An exceptionally peaceful and beautiful sculpture garden!

While there, visit BARTON SPRINGS ( http://www.tec.org/bartonsprings/5Ws.html ) a 1,000 foot long natural limestone pool fed by several underground springs, situated in ZILKER PARK (http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/zilker ) and ride Zilker Eagle train, and enjoy huge playscape and 400 acres of sports fields and woodlands.

Then for more scenery, take HILL COUNTRY FLYER, a steam locomotive SP 786 manned by volunteers. There are 1-hour trips through Austin, a 33-mile ride from Cedar Park (north of Austin) to Burnet through Hill Country and special event rides, such as murder-mystery excursions. Call 512-477-8468 for more information. Also for kids, there are zoos in both San Antonio and Austin. If you choose Dallas area, give photographer Kelly Dunn of JustImagineInc a call ( http://www.justimagineinc.com ). Book your bluebonnet photography session early. She's very popular. BAT EGRESS

And last, but not least, to make this a memorable excursion for kids, there's BAT EGRESS. This is something you won't see all time. Every evening from March until early November, 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats emerge from their roosts under Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin on their nightly forage for food. Go here for directions - http://www.batcon.org/discover/congress.html .

There’s plenty of parking, restaurants nearby, a souvenir stand (yes, t-shirts!) but no public restrooms or concessions.

They usually fly out at dusk and yes, there’s a hotline. Call 512-416-5700 (category 3636) for latest flight times.

Here is a picture of people waiting - http://www.batcon.org/discover/cab14-sm.jpg , and here go bats - http://www.batcon.org/discover/cab08-sm.jpg .

Trust me, you have never seen anything like it, and it is guaranteed to render all age groups speechless. It’s very silent. It is also VERY creepy. (And remember, you can look but you better not touch.)

Y’all come now, y'hear?

©Susan Dunn, MA, Life & EQ Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc . She offers individual coaching, Internet courses and ebooks for your personal and professional development and helps people develop their emotional intelligence. She trains and certifies EQ coaches. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc for FREE ezine and more information. Ms. Dunn is the author of "How to Develop Your Child's EQ," www.webstrategies.cc/ebooklibrary.html .

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