we went to the Trail of Lights...

at Zilker Park. Nothing says Merry Christmas more than a 30 minute one mile traffic jam. We even got squeezed out of our spot in line by a jackass in a huge suburban. We were being nice and let a truck cut in and the guy behind him decided it was his turn, too. Everyone knows it's one car at a time. Ho Ho Ho, you Scrooge! I hope the Grinch steals all of your presents. The funny thing is he was 4 inches away from an insurance claim on our front fender so he could be one car ahead of us. It's coal in your stocking, buddy.

Well, enough of the holiday gripes, how about some holiday cheer! The Trail of Lights is an Austin tradition since 1965. Most of the displays are the same every year. You have the usual suspects like the Peanuts gang, Mickey Mouse, the Grinch, Santa and the reindeer, etc., etc., etc. The header of this blog was created with photos I took several years ago at the TOL. There are way over a million lights and I'm sure the City of Austin electric company employees are smiling all the way to the bank with their Christmas bonus checks. So here are a few photos of the magical wonderland...



This is the huge lighted tree that is attached to a moonlight tower. The tradition here is to spin around under the tree looking up. It looks like the following sequence of photos...






Coan finally got into after seeing his friend Aidan spin around. We loaded up with giant bags of kettle corn and headed over to the...







And that's pretty much it. There are about 20 more scenes of characters but you get the idea. Now you can skip the traffic and the bah humbuggers in line to get in.