There are restaurants and stores all along the River, and every square inch is cultivated with trees, flowers, bushes, mosaics, and more. It's quite beautiful!
We must have walked over 8 miles today, because we covered the vast majority of the River Walk. It was brilliant of San Antonio to invest in this attraction, because it's great for boosting tourism (and I'd guess local morale as well) since people love water. Everyone flocks to the riverfront restaurants and bars, and numerous hotels are waterfront as well. There's a little shopping village that even has an outdoor stage and terraced grass seating with the river running through it!
You can enter and exit the River Walk at numerous spots, so while we explored San Antonio below street level most of the day, we came up to check out the mall, the Alamo, and a little center city square.
The mall is a giant multi-level structure with stores geared mostly toward tourists. There was a great high school jazz band playing in an outdoor area of the mall, too. We didn't spend much time here, but it was a nice respite from the heat and humidity. San Antonio is usually pretty dry, but our friends who live nearby said it had been unusually hot and muggy lately. We were caked in sweat by the end of the day.
The Alamo was right off the River Walk as well, and it's free to the public for exploration. Only two original structures remain, but San Antonio has done a great job of restoring things and providing a very informational self-guided tour. Tom and I were anxious to learn the history behind the "Remember the Alamo!" cry. In short, Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna attacked the Alamo in 1836 - a 13-day siege which ended in utter defeat of the "Texians." All but two Texians defending the Alamo were killed, and the few who surrendered were executed. A few months later, the Texians attacked Santa Anna's camp, shouting, "Remember the Alamo!" Even though they were outnumbered, they defeated Santa Anna's troops in just 18 minutes. So now you know. We were intrigued. Six different flags have flown over Texas (including its own as an independent country) - it's no wonder they want to secede again. :-)
After the Alamo, we walked back along the River Walk and got lunch at a Tex-Mex place called Acenar (Spanish for water mill). It was DELICIOUS. And they brought out a guacamole cart to make it fresh for us (with double the avocado compared to NYC restaurants). Yummm.....
We ate so much at lunch that we just walked around in a food coma for a bit and then started our trip north toward Austin. We have college friends who live in Round Rock, a suburb of Austin, so we drove to their place to spend a few days. They had free tickets to a minor league baseball game, and we headed to the Round Rock Express stadium to check it out. Josh Hamilton, a MLB Texas Ranger, was recovering from an injury and playing for the Express, so we got to see him whack a homerun in his last minor league game before heading back to the big leagues. We also got a taste of a great Texas beer called Shiner. We didn't stay at the game long, though - there were threats of tornadoes and major storms just north of us. Even though there was a lot of lightening in the sky, officials didn't cancel the game, but we left anyway. And discovered our new favorite Tex-Mex restaurant: Chuy's. Amazing.
The next day, we had lunch at Salt Lick, a popular Texas BBQ restaurant (but their BBQ is beef, not pork). They have lots of sides and fixins, too, and we had a good meal. We topped it off with some donuts from Round Rock Donuts, and I swear - I've never had a donut so delicious. We got normal-sized donuts, but they have a Texas-sized donut that's the size of six regular donuts combined.
Then, we went to downtown Austin with our friends and their 5-year-old daughter. We walked around the state capital building (which, you guessed it, is BIGGER than the U.S. capitol building). We also drove around the downtown area and the University of Texas campus.
We were still so full from the BBQ and donuts that we headed back to their house, saw a puppet show performance, ate breakfast for dinner, and called it a night. Monday morning, Tom and I headed north to Oklahoma City (and got lunch at another Chuy's along the way).
Oh, and this post isn't complete without a few pics of our friends' cute kid:
Up next: Thunder and Tornadoes...
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