Johnson City « Places 2 Explore

It is spring in Texas…this means wildflower season! At this time of year hopefully you can find bluebonnets all over. Unfortunately, this year in Austin they are hard to find! Sometimes when we do not get enough rain..or this year it may have been too cold near spring..it can affect the amount of flowers. We can see small patches near our house here and there…but not enough to take the traditional family shot with. On Saturday we decided to take a drive to Fredericksburg, then up to the Willow City Loop. The Willow City Loop is a 13 mile scenic drive through the hill country canyon area that is a hot spot to see wildflowers. We made the drive (my first time) and saw only a few small patches…so sad! During our drive up through Johnson City…we did see our biggest patch yet and on the drive back…we stopped and took a few pics! They are lovely flowers and this shot was done up with the Pixel Bender plug-in for CS5. Its free and I love using it on flowers and landscape…this is the oilpaint option. Enjoy spring wherever you may be…hope some flowers are popping up!!

As soon as I purchased my new fisheye lens a few months ago I wanted to go out and give it a try! I took a drive out to Johnson City as I have always driven by this old abandoned Feed Mill…it has lots of character. I walked around and took a bunch of shots and liked this old building with shoes nailed to it! Quite interesting! From walking around I can tell there was a antique store, a bar, a restaurant and housing located on the property. It was a nice sunny day and luckily this place is right near the main road…cause its a bit spooky! If you look at the picture and follow the path down the middle you can see some of the little housing shacks. Kinda reminded me of the Texas Chainsaw incident! I didn’t want to bump into Leatherface! I kept my eyes and ears open while walking around. When I was just about done, I bumped into and old guy (about 90 years old) out front. He used to work there and told me that they have plans to refurbish the mill into a nice restaurant one day. Stop on by if you do not mind eerie places!

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