No finer place for sure

Considering how cool our downtown is, we don't spend nearly enough time there. So it's somewhat surprising that in the last week I've been around the very heart of the area—the Alamo—not once, but twice!

This photo was taken* early Thursday when I got downtown (via bus) a little too early for a librarians' meeting at the historic Menger Hotel (you can see and read more about this neat hotel in a previous blog post).

Then, last night we attended a silly, but very entertaining, show at the Arneson River Theatre, an outdoor riverside amphitheatre just down the street from the iconic chapel. (It was Complete Works of Shakespeare...Abridged, put on by the Company Theatre. Quite a hoot, especially for the English majors in the audience.)

What a unique venue! And pretty much a perfect one, at least on an evening as pleasant as last night. Cool breezes (which won't be around for long, more's the pity) and clear skies...a great night for theatre under the stars and for floating down the river. (The players cleverly used the passing tourist barges in their patter, and the folks on board obviously enjoyed getting to see a snippet of the revue as a bonus.)

In all, I've probably spent as much time on the Riverwalk this week as I had in the past two years! We strolled around for some ice cream after the performance last night, and on Thursday I met some colleagues for a delightful lunch about as close to the water as you could get and stay dry!

I couldn't help but be impressed while downtown, not only by our wonderful Riverwalk, but also by some of the gorgeous buildings there. On the way from dinner to the Arneson, I caught this glimpse of the Emily Morgan Hotel through the windshield...[note Miami-looking palms and, un milagrito, a cyclist!]

Just a few days earlier I'd been even more taken with its early morning glow, next to its more famous neighbor...

Then, on our walk to the theatre, there was another gothic-looking structure begging to be photographed, the Tower Life Building, this time favored by a late afternoon sun...

For such a small, compact, downtown (and this has its advantages, too, as it's easy to get around!) we have a lot of great sights to admire.

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*I apologize for the picture quality of some of these photos. And also for my lack of blogging lately.

I am, unfortunately, still grieving for the loss of my wonderful camera—waterproof, but not immune to stupidly careless behavior (mine) that resulted in its being washed out of my kayak two weeks ago.

We might have been able to go back and find it later with snorkeling gear if the river levels hadn't perversely shot up soon thereafter, making for some great paddling, but also insuring that the poor baby is probably buried in the riverbed now, under tons of debris.

I am still debating whether I am entitled to buy a new camera, or could possibly find a nice used one, or whether I should do more penance—namely, being restricted to my phone camera for photos. It does remarkably well for a device that really has no business being a camera as well as a phone and internet connector. But it's not as good as its lost brother, as I'm sure you can see in some of the pictures above.

So I will probably continue my only sporadic blogging for a while, as I work through this surprising difficult emotional turmoil. Please bear with me.

And if anyone knows of someone wanting to unload a small waterproof camera, let me know in the comments. You can assure the owner that lessons have been learned and it will be anchored to boat and/or person at all times and will not be sacrificed to the river gods if I can possibly help it.

I can't bear the thought of going through this again.

Wordless Wednesday: a green spring

Wordless Wednesday: the root of the matter

Visiting a big little brother

I had a meeting the other day out at our city's biggest university, which happens to be one of the little sibs of that big boy up IH-35 in Austin.

I'm referring to UTSA—which stands for the University of Texas at San Antonio. There are University of Texas at's all over the state, but this one is ours and it's growing by leaps and bounds. Enrollment and programs are expanding, as is the campus' physical plant (and the library's collection, too). They even have a football team!

Gee whiz, but there are some huge buildings on that campus! Large enough to make you think of some of the structures on the campus of UT-Austin.

And, they're putting up new ones, it seems, as fast as they can.

Here you can see one of the many construction cranes I saw on my walk from the bus stop to the library, a walk that covers just a tiny section of the campus' acreage.

The library's not one of the newer buildings, in fact, it was one of the originals. But it's always (at least, I think so) had this amazing plaza in front of it...a pretty spectacular place that was looking a little lonely when I was there. Since the students were all on spring break. Imagine it full of chattering, socializing undergrads, as I'm sure it is on a normal Thursday morning:

I just love those panels overhead. I'll bet they keep the space relatively cool when the summer sun is beating down.

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I mentioned the bus stop. Yes, I didn't have to deal with one of the concomitants of rapid growth that my UTSA colleagues have complained about—difficult and expensive parking. Nope, I just used the same bus pass I do every day going to work. But this time it got me a much plusher seat on the express from Crossroads/Wonderland Park-and-Ride out to the campus.

In addition to the nice seats, the bus even offers wifi, so I could have posted this blog item even sooner! However, I tend to use bus rides for reading and had a book with me to enjoy on the quick trip out IH-10 and back.

It's not quite the National Rail service I raved about when I was in England, but pretty nifty all the same. 

Wordless Wednesday: a bit large for a porch planter...

Intrepid explorers

We've had some really freakish weather lately. Not just that we've been treated to a couple of muscular cold fronts, but their timing has been terrible! Very nice, even warm-to-hot weather during the week. Then, on Saturday, when we're raring to go paddling, we get cold, rain and wind.

This weekend continued the trend. The weather spoiled a planned outing on a totally new stretch of river, too. The San Antonio River Authority recently opened a new paddling trail south of town. There was an article about it in the paper, and we really want to try it out But not in 40-degree, rainy weather.

However, since it's a slice of river we've never been on before, we thought a scouting trip to the put-in and take-out points would give us good information for that eventual sunny weekend that would allow us to christen it. It's great to have a good paddling area so close to us! (about half an hour from our house)

(The odd name for the trail is because of a little town nearby. An odd name for a town, too, you might say. The always handy and authoritative Handbook of Texas Online gives us the story: the syllables of the name stand for "San Antonio Sewer Pipe Manufacturing Company," a manufacturing concern active there from the early 1900's. Cute, eh? Also kind of catchy.)

At any rate, a small group of explorers took off to brave the cold, wet, and amazingly sticky and cumbersome caliche mud to see what's what along the Saspamco.

The river scenery is quite lovely. And our recent rains, in addition to creating the mud that caked our boots and almost got the car stuck, have made the river current flow look most inviting. Can't wait to get on it in a boat!

And the River Authority folks have made some very nice improvements to the loading-unloading areas, including graveled parking lots, porta-potties (very important elements!) and metal stairs leading down to the water at two of the locations. 

We were able to chat a bit with one of the Authority's employees and learned about plans they have for more upgrades. As well as some of the issues they have to deal with, such as flood-deposited silts that will have to be cleared off of any walkways.

But what's there now is very nice already.

Maybe we'll get a chance to give Saspamco a real test soon...if the weekend-spoiling weather pattern ever lets up!

Wordless Wednesday: must be spring