My last normal outing

Not quite three weeks ago—although it seems like three years ago—I had what I didn't know then would be my last [old] normal day for a while.

On Friday afternoons, I used to, normally, volunteer at the Texas Public Radio Offices. I answer the phone and otherwise fill in for their regular receptionist so that she can have some uninterrupted time doing other important tasks. (Because, of course, at non-profits everyone does two or three different jobs.) It's a fun volunteer gig: I've gotten to meet some local and national Public Radio celebrities over the years, plus they sometimes have potluck lunches that they generously invite me to partake of.

The most exciting thing going on there lately, though, has been their move to spacious and snazzy new digs downtown. After a few postponements due to construction delays, I finally got to put in my volunteer stint at the new place on Friday, March 13. Lucky Friday the 13th, as it turned out for me.

The picture at the top of the post is the new building. Doesn't it look super? After having just part of a floor in a building out in the Medical Center, they have this whole space! The reporters have a whole floor and the admin folks that I most often interact with have their own floor, too.

a view out the new office windows of our newest, showiest skyscraper

What's even more exciting—or, at least it will be, eventually—is the building's location. Here's another shot from inside the office. I know it doesn't look like much now...

...but this is construction on our city's project to beautify what is now a drainage ditch through downtown. It will eventually make as nice a waterway of San Pedro Creek as the WPA did for the San Antonio River.

Here's what it might look like:

The western part of downtown where all this is going on is still in the process of getting spruced up to match some of the swankier bits, but there are definitely other development pieces coming online in addition to the TPR offices. 

Another of our beautiful old theatres, the Alameda, is right behind TPR:

And that splashy new skyscraper (the one that looks like it was transplanted from Austin ) is the Frost Tower, just a few blocks away:

Of course, the bummer of all this is that I got to go to work in this great new space just once! But I'm hopeful that my regular volunteering schedule will eventually resume. 

In the meantime, mucho kudos to the TPR staff for providing such great, up-to-the-minute local news for us, in this time when local news is more important than ever. I hope that my San Antonio readers might take a minute to drop them a donation at tpr.org so that they can continue doing this work for all of us. They aren't going to be able to have their usual spring fundraiser, and they need to make up for that somehow.

If you're reading this somewhere else, I'm sure your local NPR station is just as worthy of your support. Donate today!

A much-needed break on the river

social distancing, Guadalupe-River-style

We took advice to get outside and exercise perhaps a bit to the extreme yesterday and went for a short paddle on the upper Guadalupe. Paddling! On a Wednesday! That sounds like a silver lining if ever there was one.

The day was beautiful and the river was flowing just enough to allow scrape-free floating. Here's where we started, at James Kiehl Park:

An especially noteworthy sight along the way was the multitude of just-leafing-out cypress trees...

I was so entranced by these lovelies that I spent a bit of time at our lunch stop (where we kept our distance and didn't share) to take some closeups. Here are the best two:

Of course all the trees along the river look great from more of a distance, too...

There were equally photogenic rocks, since this is the south Texas hill country and all we have under our feet there is at most two or three inches of dirt, then limestone all the way down...

...and turtles!

It was overall a very relaxing and much-needed escape from worries of the day. We are so lucky here to have nature so close at hand and easy to access.

I was doubly pleased to be paddling since it has been a really long time since I was on the river. My shoulder issues seem to have lessened and I'm again confident enough to handle a short, easy paddle like this one. 

All too soon, however, our little idyll was at an end. Here's the Waring bridge:

I hope we can do this again soon. And I hope all my dear readers are able to find a similar way to stay safe, stay sane, and find peace in these crazy times.