Wordless Wednesday: the glory, indeed

 

Wordless Wednesday: you should see the other guy!

 

Wordless Wednesday: Pink snow

 

Wordless Wednesday: first swim of the summer!

 

Wordless Wednesday: Mirabilis!

 

Wordless Wednesday: a sharp dresser

 

Downstream

A while ago I showed you the stretch of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park upstream from the Texas Public Radio headquarters. I recently, finally, I made the time to take a look at the (shorter) section downstream.

Here's what the handsome TPR building looks like from the downstream side:

That's a fine landmark to keep you oriented, but it's not the only impressive edifice along this walk...

downtown University of Texas at San Antonio

I had not seen this latest addition to what's become a sprawling downtown campus. Many years ago, when our fair city was granted a UT branch, there was talk of locating it downtown. But for various reasons (probably including local politics) it was planted on the far north side of town. Where, to be fair, it has prospered (almost 35,000 students currently). Twenty or so years later, the university opened a small downtown campus which has also grown like gangbusters, transforming at least a small part of the near west side. The creekside building you see above houses their data sciences department.

I wasn't able to go all the way down to the end of the Park's development, as it started to sprinkle and heavy rain was forecast. I'll try to complete my tour at a future date, but here's a glimpse from where I stopped and turned around:

note the egret primping itself, in the red box

But I did get to see a lot of the beautiful tile art and mosaic murals along the creek. The mural at the top of the post is the culmination of a series of scenes highlighting SA history. Here are a couple more:

I love the way this one is reflecting in the calm water

In addition to these narrative murals, there are more abstract displays, like this one right behind the TPR building...

And if you noticed the tilework along the steps, well, of course, I did, too!

Here's another sample of the lovely tilework that adorns the creekside. I'm so impressed with how attractive our city has made this former ditch!

Wordless Wednesday: Zoot alors! Les chiens!

 

Wordless Wednesday: what a handsome house...

 

...walked into a cave with no name...

We didn't ride there on a horse with no name, but this wonderful cave is actually Without a Name (the legend, we were told, is that a little boy said once that it was too beautiful to have a name, and that stuck!).

It's only about an hour from my house, but I'd never been there. So when a group of college friends got together and wanted to tour it, I couldn't wait.

It's on private property, but they have a well-organized tour and reservation system and our guide was knowledgeable about the geology, formations, and history of the amazing space. Accidentally discovered by some local children close to 100 years ago (one of the kids died recently, in her 90's) there are still goodness knows how many undiscovered chambers. But what has been developed is fabulous enough. The picture on the right shows how the kids first got in, as well as part of the stairway that, fortunately, is how you go into the cave today.

Made by a subsidiary stream of the Guadalupe River that seeps underground through the limestone, we were told that on occasion parts of the cave are flooded, but our current drought means there's no danger of that. Here's a look at the subterranean river...

Some of the rooms we visited, while not Carlsbad Caverns size, are still pretty humongous:

They even have concerts in one of the spaces, and rent it out for weddings, etc. One of our group had a birthday, and when we sang to her, it sounded pretty awesome; I can't imagine what real musicians would sound like in these acoustics!

As you can imagine, I took a lot of pictures with my new phone, which I'm happy to say does okay in low light. Here are some of my favorites, highlighting cave features large and small:

this might be my favorite pic

Here are two especially impressive groups of features:

You can see how porous the limestone is...

...which, of course, is how the water seeps in to make these features, both large and small, and sometimes both in the same space!

Those drapery features are almost everywhere, and so, so very gorgeous!

gorgeous and appetizing...bacon, anyone?

Here are an assortment of lovelies: draperies, tites and mites (stalactites coming down, mites growing up...will I remember the distinction this time? probably not):

You'll notice some of the deposits are white; our guide told us that these are the more recent ones:

The cave has been open to visitors for many years, under different owners. In order to accommodate the largest numbers of paying customers, some former owners brought in gravel to smooth the walkways, sometimes so much that some great features were buried. This is how the gravel was transported into the cave: throught the small hole you see in the "roof" here, where the pole is:

Volunteers in recent years have reversed this process, removing gravel so that more of the cave's marvels are back in view. Some of the most photogenic features so restored are these rim dams, collecting water (artificially, our guide admitted, at least during droughts) to make lovely reflecting pools:

This part of Texas is lousy with limestone caves, and it's somewhat alarming to think about as you walk along what you assumed was solid ground all the way down. (There's even an extensive cave system under part of San Antonio!) But it's also very cool to imagine this other world, just out of sight. I'd be up for seeing more of these underground wonders!

21st-century playgrounds

Like many, many things that have changed since I was a kid, playgrounds....wow!

the blogger on unsafe jungle gym
circa. 1955

It's one (of the many) perk of having grandchildren: you get to explore these fantastic (and much safer) play spaces. And I've gotten to see many variations over the past seven years or so. 

But the playground at Austin's Walnut Creek Park is one of the most amazing, in my admittedly limited experience. The super treehouse you see at the top of the post is the centerpiece, and, no, I did not go down the incredibly long and twisting tunnel slide. But I did let my four-year-old granddaughter talk me in to climbing up to the top platform. Which is not straightforward; there are steps for a short while, but then you have to climb up short climbing walls to the next stages. Whew! It was a workout!

Here is a closer look at the top sections:

And that's not all that was unusual about this place. The swings, admittedly, aren't that odd, although there is a two-seater of a design new to me. Unfortunately, old-age middle-ear issues didn't let me go as high as my two-year-old partner wanted to.

But this is a merry-go-round setup that I hadn't seen before. Much safer than those engines of terror that I remember from girlhood, but still subject to issues when little kids are pushed faster than they like by bigger ones. An interesting concept, though:

You might notice that neither of my sensibly cautious grandchildren are in this picture, which is one of frightened tears waiting to happen.

There is a less intense area for smaller kids, and we did spend some time there, but I have no photos, sorry.

However, I have one more cool, and possibly unique, feature of this place to show you.

A more rustic (and closer to the ground) version of the big treehouse is this fun structure. In the picture excited granddaughters (who have been here before with their nanny) are leading Mom and Gramma. The colorful roof is made out of smashed cans...a wonderful example of upcycling:

The park as a whole (as you can see in the link above) is enormous and has miles of hiking and biking trails (some of which are—much to my daughter's disapproval—dogs-off-leash areas) and some sports fields. But the playground provided enough entertainment for our morning. And a stellar addition to my growing collection of up-to-date playgrounds I have experienced.

A little more creekside history

 

You might remember my post from the end of last year, when I talked about returning to my volunteer "job" at Texas Public Radio and my stroll from their headquarters down (or rather, up-stream) the new San Pedro Creek Cultural Park. There is one important site along the creek that I didn't mention then, and you can see it above here.

A few years ago, when work began on the creek development, the city made a surprising discovery: they found the old foundation of an early African-American church building. The St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church is still active in town (as you can see from the link), but its original location was downtown. Right next door, as it happens, to the new TPR building! Appropriately enough, you can hear an edition of the station's local news call-in show that can give you more information about the discovery (as well as show you how the site shown above looked in 2020, soon after the discovery). 

After my volunteer stint the other day, I took a quick look at the site, which outlines the foundation of the church building. There's also an informative sign and—would you believe it!—a lovely bit of tile art. You can see a close-up of that just above, and see how it's situated in the site here, complete with lovely blooming redbud:

Another look, as seen from the windows of my receptionist's station, gives an even better idea of what the whole area looks like; the creek is in between the church site and the TPR building:

And while I was looking out these nice windows, my glance moved a bit south and caught this grand panorama of important San Antonio structures: the Hemisfair Tower of the Americas, the Tower Life Building, and the upper part of our super-photogenic courthouse (see what it looks like decorated for the holidays here):

There is a little more of the cultural park that I haven't seen, downstream from the radio station. I hope to take a walk down that way soon and will show you what I find.

Wordless Wednesday: sometimes even weeds are pretty

 

Wordless Wednesday: sad anniversary coming up

 

Wordless Wednesday: wash those windows!

 

Ice consequences

Every street I drove down in Austin last week had piles like this, although not all were as massive...

This was the aftermath of the big ice storm that hit A-town, cracking tree limbs all over town and keeping some folks in the dark and cold for as long as days. Sally's family only lost power for four hours, one of the lucky ones, but she said the house got pretty cold.

Fortunately for us, the temperatures where we live never quite got below freezing (plus we didn't have as much rain to freeze). But some folks in Austin got hit hard.

Here's what's left of a really big tree that just came up out of the ground in the Rosedale neighborhood, and had to be dismembered:

Playgrounds weren't spared either; so glad school was cancelled so that no kiddos were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time!

And I expect I'll still see effects of this nasty weather when I go back next week. But I hope they will have taken care of the huge limb hanging by a thread that you can see in the red box here:

You don't want to be anywhere near when that big boy comes down!