Retail Graveyard and the Road From Nowhere

At least twice a month, I take a bus from downtown Austin to Kyle, about 20 miles south of downtown. The bus drops me off at a taqueria with some of the best breakfast tacos I've ever had. I then have to walk about 2 miles to my ultimate destination. I could walk along the frontage road of IH35, but I'm not suicidal, so I cross the interstate and then walk down a hill next to a Dairy Queen and then walk through what can only be described as a retail graveyard. It was once a large shopping center, but all of the stores closed at least a decade ago, and the buildings were torn down. The area is now completely overgrown, except for the streets that went through the shopping center, and is home to all manner of wildlife. In the last three months, I've spotted at least 10 different species of song birds, buzzards, red tailed hawks and another raptor that I don't recognize, mice, feral cats, a rat snake, and one fat western diamondback rattle snake. Here's a picture of a part of the retail graveyard (looking southeast):

In the spring, that entire area was filled with small bushes, each with dozens of little yellow flowers. It was striking.

There's one feature of the graveyard that strikes me as downright surreal. At the south end is a road that appears, seemingly ex nihilo, out of the woods. It is a road from nowhere:


Here is an aerial view, so that you can see that the street really does come from nowhere (the building just south of the bridge is the Dairy Queen). My favorite part is the left turn only lane, which will be useful to the cars that materialize out of the woods and drive down this street. If you can't tell, this second picture (taken looking east) was taken in winter. The woods at the far end are now quite green. I like to walk back there, down a small hill at the end of the road, and sit under the trees while reading. I just have to remember to brush the ants, rollie pollies, and wolf spiders off my legs now and then.