A bizarre effect of volunteering in the Wildlife Refuge is that we spend more and more of our free time driving or walking through parks and other refuges looking for and trying to identify animals and flowers that we have not seen before. It was just such wandering that made us arrive too late at the Stephen F. Austin statue to enter the site and actually learn why he was the Father of Texas and why the state capitol is named after him. If you just want to see me standing in front of a statue that according to the internet is between 60′ – 80′ tall (really every article shows a different height), then here is my report from the locked gate at the entrance to the park.