It was nice to experience, at least some degree of normalcy, for the bulk of the year with no shutdowns or cancelled workshops.
We kicked off the year in March with our usual Astrophotography and Advanced Astrophotography Workshops.. The weather was cooperative, which was great since the astrophotography workshop was our biggest ever with 40 guests (after the 2020 versions were cancelled).
The historic winter storms were actually a great thing for the upcoming wildflower season. Bluebonnets are freeze tolerant. The plants are mostly still small and are in the process of building their root systems.
This was a really difficult year for our business. It started out normal enough, and although I was keeping an eye on the situation developing in Wuhan, I never imagined it would hit here as hard as it did. Our first week of workshops were scheduled to begin on March 20th. In seven years of running workshops we had never cancelled an event.
Let me just start by saying the real toll of the novel coronavirus will be told in the loss of lives and none of the following is meant to minimize that. The economic impact is already devastating, for our industry and many industries in general. A lot of people are hurting right now, confused what to do about the plans they have made in the coming months. Businesses are shutting down or running at partial capacity. Everyone should be practicing social distancing and I’m honestly disgusted seeing crowds still gathering. For those of us in the photo-tourism industry, if coronavirus hasn’t affected your business yet, it’s going to sooner than later.
Bluebonnet season is right around the corner. In fact, we were already seeing some early blooming in extreme southern locations along the Rio Grande and Gulf Coast. I wouldn’t expect widespread blooming anytime over the next several weeks after the recent winter storm and as temps stay on the cool side across most of the state. If current trends verify, I would expect the season to be right on schedule, with southern locations blooming in the middle of March and northern locations filling in through the first two weeks of April.