Four-Day Review - Thurs., June 6

My oh my. What a week this has been. Here's a recap...

Sunday: Bob worked. I stayed home and cleaned house, read blogs.

Monday: See Monday's blog here.

Tuesday: I worked 8 am to 5 pm as receptionist at the office where Bob works. The office was very quiet. At night, we watched our Netflix selection, The Spanish Prisoner, a thriller which came out in 1997. Pretty good movie, but it left loose ends. We followed the twisting and turning plot but, like the movie Ronan in which you never find out what's in the briefcase, in this movie you never find out what "The Process" is. Everyone wants it, but no one knows what it is; only that it is supposed to make whoever owns it incredibly wealthy. The movie stars Ben Gazzara, Steve Martin, Ricky Jay, Felicity Huffman, Rebecca Pidgeon and Campbell Scott.

Wednesday: Back to work as receptionist. Today was craaaa-zeee! The morning was mellow and quiet until 10 am when all hell broke loose. Bob wanted me to post a Help Wanted ad on craigslist, but I didn't have a copy of the ad. He ended up posting it. Calls started coming in immediately.

My hour lunch started at 11:00 a.m. Permission was granted for me to go to lunch and the Executive Secretary covered the front desk. When I left no one was in the front office. I dropped off the Netflix movie at the post office and picked up my pre-ordered, "to go" lunch from La Madeline. When I returned to the office, five applicants were in reception filling out applications. The Executive Secretary covered the reception area until I ate my lunch. Long story short, the afternoon was crazy with phone calls and applicants coming in. Interviews were conducted by the Operations Manager and four guys were hired. One quit later that afternoon.

Wednesday evening, Bob and I walked the south end of the downtown Riverwalk with the San Antonio Hill Country Hikers. The walk was moderate paced so I didn't have to run to keep up. We completed five miles.

Impressionistic photo a la Monet.

Very lush vegetation along the San Antonio River.

Walk co-leader, tall Paul.

One of the many bridges spanning the river.

Another bridge with water taxis underneath.

City kitty.

Riverwalk.

Yellow-crowned night heron.

San Antonio Riverwalk.

Trail rail.

Serene scene.

Pioneer flour tower.

Snake wake.

Thursday: Worked ten hours in the RV park office. I love this job. At the end of the day I started learning about day-end closing procedures.

Tomorrow will be another RV park office day. Tomorrow night we're invited to an American Petroleum Institute meet 'n' greet with food and drinks provided.

Early Saturday morning, we're doing a 10K Volksmarch. At 2:45 p.m. Saturday, we're participating in Hike-Brew-Burgers with Hill Country Hikers in Helotes, Texas. After our hike at Matla Natural Area, we're going to Floore's Country Store for food, drink and, later in the evening, music. I don't know how long we'll stay because Randall, Bob's son, is taking the train to San Antonio from Austin and we're meeting him at the train station around 9:45 p.m.

Sunday morning, I am going with the Hill Country Hikers on a 10-mile hike at Tapatio Springs Resort in Boerne, Texas. Thirty-nine people signed up to go on this hike. Bob will be working Sunday.

A whole lotta things going on here. In addition, I'd like to go to San Antonio Folklife Festival this weekend at the Texan Cultures Institute. The festival includes free admission to the museum. But when???

Plus laundry needs to be done and there's that little thing called sleep with which we could become much better acquainted!

Travel Bug out.

Museum Reach of San Antonio's Riverwalk - Wed., May 22

At 7:00 p.m., San Antonio Hill Country Hikers started their walk near La Gloria Restaurant behind the Pearl Brewery. Goal: a four-mile round trip walk to the Houston Street Bridge and back. Twenty-five people walked the walk and talked the talk, some of it trash talk.

A greeting committee consisting of our group leaders welcomes everyone and explains the walk. A group photo is taken at the beginning, then the fast walkers set their pace, and everyone else settles into their own rhythm. Also at the start point, hanging out in the water were mallards, a coot, and a yellow-crowned night heron.

Paul photographing the group at the start.

Placid aquascaping.

Yellow-crowned night heron.

Many blooming flowers along the Riverwalk.

The Museum Reach of the Riverwalk is north of downtown and passes by the San Antonio Museum of Art. Along the Museum Reach are works of art along the bridge overcrossings, under the bridges and along the path.

Hands across the water (bridge overcrossing art)

Faux bois (false wood - concrete) arbor

 Many tile murals line the Riverwalk. Here are a few...

Tile work to beautify an outlet cover.

Tile work depicting the San Antonio River.

Downtown, Tower of the Americas and river in the foreground.

Houston St. Bridge artwork of Mission Concepcion.

Fish art hanging under an interstate bridge; crepe myrtle blossom in foreground.

The Grotto - cement art complete with skull and waterfall.

The Museum Reach is beautiful with many trees and flowers currently in bloom. Jasmine wafted in the air through sections, honeysuckle scent in other sections. The hibiscus are in bloom and have the most vibrant colors - red, orange, yellow, pink. The dramatic trumpet flower has blooms that measure 10"-12".

Trumpet flower.

For Bob and I, these walks give us time to connect and talk about what's going on in our lives and what we plan to do in the future; all while enjoying the fresh air and beautiful surroundings. The temperature was in the high 80s this evening and VERY humid!

Museum Reach of Riverwalk

Another yellow-crowned night heron.

Places to go from the Riverwalk. Well marked path!

When the walk was over, a number of people from the group were going to The Cove for dinner and invited everyone to go. We had never been and decided to check it out. What a good place. One thing Bob and I have noticed about San Antonians is they like to sit outside under a tree, patio, or the evening sky to eat. The Cove has a large outdoor seating area with a small, air-conditioned inside area (the bar). Bob and I both had "Lisa's Special" which is two tilapia soft tacos made with cabbage and poblano sauce, along with a spinach salad for $9. That was the perfect ending to our four-mile walk.

We returned home at 9:30 p.m. Thank you to the Hill Country Hikers. You have a knack for making people feel welcome and a part of the group from the first outing.

Travel Bug out.

Girls' Day Out -- Tues., Sep. 4

Two Susan A.'s set loose on San Antonio's Riverwalk on this 100 F. day in September. What to do? What to do? (The other Susan's blog is What's Up with Susan and Company?)

First, park in the shade. We opted for the Riverwalk Mall parking at $4.00 for the first hour and $1 per 20 minutes after that...maximum $18.00. Deep breath. It'll be all right. The car will stay cooler in the shade.

Second, find food! Neither of us had breakfast, so we decided to walk along the Riverwalk and look at the menus at the various and diverse restaurants (though a majority of them were Mexican or Tex-Mex). So many restaurants, so little time. Hmmmm...we decided on Dick's (advertised as the male equivalent of Hooters). [An aside: When Bob and I had walked past on a weekend, Dick's looked like the hoppin' place to be. Customers had on chef's hats with weird sayings written on them like, "I dance on the tables," and other various and sundry fluff.]

 Today, our waiter, John, was flirty and fun, not to mention lived in an RV on the south side of San Antonio. Drat, I didn't get his picture. Oh, wait, Susan did. When she posts, she said I could snag the photo. I did get a photo of Susan taking a photo of me taking a photo of her!

Anyway maybe because it was a weekday and the restaurant was slow, there were no chef's hats and no tawdry insults thrown around. We did have a good lunch: crab cakes, rice and steamed vegetables. (Shared lunch so we would have room for ice cream later on.)

Third, take the river taxi. We bought the full day pass that takes you everywhere the water taxi goes. You can get on and off as much as you like.

Here it is the middle of the day, 100+ degrees and we're sitting in an open boat, sun beating down. Thank goodness, the water taxi provided umbrellas. Both of us snagged an umbrella which kept us from becoming lobsters. Sweat was running down my spine, the seats were plastic so a towel to put under us would have been good. It was humid as well as hot. 

Lots of bridges of all types.

Crape myrtle trees in bloom.

The other Susan A. on water taxi with her umbrella.

One of the unusual things we got to do on the water taxi was go through the lock on the river, all 9' in height of it. It took maybe 3-5 minutes to go from one level to the next.

We took the water taxi out to the old Pearl Brewery (end of the line for the water taxi). I wanted Susan to see the art work along the way. Bridges over the river have decorations on the bridge and under the bridge (see the fish under the I-35 freeway bridge below), plus "The Grotto" is a man-made work of art that looks like rock, but isn't, with two waterfalls. See also Riverwalk North Volkswalk.

These light up at night.

Silhouettes.

 The Grotto:

Our water taxi driver/guide kept making a big deal that the San Antonio Art Museum was free on Tuesdays from 3:00 - 9:00 p.m. As it was 2:00 p.m., we got off at the Art Museum stop and thought we'd wait an hour in Cafe des Artistes sipping lemonade or iced tea, then tour the museum. When we got to the ticket window, we were told that the art museum free hours were 4:00 - 9:00 p.m. and it would be $8.00 if we wanted to go in at 2:00 p.m. Two hours sounded like too long to wait for the free entry to the museum. Well darn. We didn't want to wait around two hours or pay $8.00. Soooo, we headed into Cafe des Artistes to regroup and cool off. By this time, we had been in the sun in the boat, baking and steaming for over an hour.

We walked into Cafe des Artistes and were smacked with blessed air conditioning. Ahhh. Tellement mieux (French for "so much better"). Both of us had started to feel the effects of the hot sun. We ordered lemonade, sat for about 20 minutes, then headed back down to the water taxi stop. 

Views from water taxi stop:

 The water taxi stop was a bench in the shade! About 10-15 minutes later a water taxi picked us up to take us back to the heart of downtown (and creme glacee shops!). 

Another 45 minutes later, we got off the water taxi and into an ice cream shop. Cool vanilla beans! I had a two-scoop cone and Susan had one scoop. That ice cream really hit the spot. 

Next, we hopped back on the water taxi and ended up at Riverside Mall. We mall walked three levels and popped into a couple of shops, sampled cookies, looked at movies and movie times, then headed back to the car. We were happy it was in the shade! And yes, we paid the full $18.00 to park. C'est la vie. (I guess I got en mode Francais at Cafe des Artistes. LOL.)

After a 10-minute drive back to Travelers World RV Park, Susan picked up Angel from Debbie the dog-sitter and I dropped her off back at her 5er.

Bob was home, so we had dinner. Susan invited us to the pool so, for the first time since we've stayed at Travelers World, we actually went in the pool. Susan and Bob sat in the hot tub for a bit, but no way, no how was I getting in the hot tub. It was still 90-some degrees out, which I believe was the temperature of the pool. I was able to get right in the pool, no hesitation. It was very nice hanging out chatting and relaxing.

After an hour, we said our good-byes to Susan who will be driving up to Camping World early in the morning.

Nice day, but hot.

P.S. I LOVE my new Canon camera. It has 20x zoom lens and I can even do stereo movies on it. Wow. (No more spots in my pictures either!)

Travel Bug out.