My Favorite Memory

First up, the Alamo!  Well first up free breakfast at the B&B which Mark loved and I drank coffee.  Because early.  Btw, the time difference between us and Texas was AWESOME.  We went to bed "late" and "slept in" but really we went to bed at 9 or 10 and got up at 5 or 6 as per usual.  But we FELT like we were on vacation!  Second was checking out, which literally meant handing the keys back to the innkeeper conveniently on hand to keep refilling coffee, etc. for breakfast and signing the guest book.  Then on to the Alamo!  And the aforementioned $20 parking, which if you have to choose between that and driving around for 30 minutes looking for a bargain while your wife goes berserk because she's MISSING SOMETHING then it's really an easy choice.  We literally saw a guy walk up to the pay machine, realize the price, turn around and tell his wife they weren't paying that and leave.  Nope.  And, a little Alamo news.

The street outside.  All the buildings here are so cool and fancy, I couldn't quit taking pics.

The Alamo hospital!  There is no picture taking in the shrine, but there wasn't any sign here so I think I'm okay.

 I think this is another lady Grackle.

 And this is definitely another White-winged Dove!  I love this pose he's doing.

I think these purple flowers are on a Mountain-Laurel -- so pretty, fragrant and beloved by bees and butterflies!  Also, koi in the acequia! 

Everytime you turn around in San Antonio, you're back on the Riverwalk.  

So we had lunch there.  There's a heron in the tree above looking very majestic under the Texas flag.

 An art glass store at the mall.  Oh yeah, there's a mall.

The promised ducks, too busy grooming to pose for me.

The Yellow-crowned Night-Heron!  In much better light.

The Great-tailed Grackle!  The male is so pretty, and I was just saying what a pretty bird, and he flew across the river to steal a chip right out of our basket.

Next up, New Braunfels!

We were so excited to get there, we arrived way too early to check in.  So we decided to drive over to the WhiteWater Amphitheater so we'd know where we were going later.  We went a little out of our way and took all afternoon, but we got to see such beautiful country!

We got stuck in traffic, and this was my view.  Not too shabby.

That water tower reads, "Unicorn Country."

Free Slurpee day at 7-11!

Our room wasn't quite ready, so we sat out on the patio, drank beers and took pictures of butterflies!  But no kidding, bees love these flowers too.  I walked away, looked down and there was a confused bee just sitting on my skirt.

Earlier in the day, we'd seen these vultures but a little late to stop.  It was too much to hope they'd still be there when we went back for the concert, but there they were!  Presenting... the Black Vulture!

They didn't love an audience while they ate, and who can blame them.

Our cabin at Hill Country RV Resort!  Like a studio apartment, except it's a cabin with your own porch.  On the porch was a wasp building a nest right above a spider nest.  Discovery Channel predators show waiting to happen, fortunately nothing happened on our watch!

The show!!  Doors opened at 6:30 so we left at 5:30 and had plenty of time to stop when we saw the vultures on the road.  We had front of stage seating and VIP parking and if you ever see a show here, and I hope you do that will be important.  They had kids directing parking, and when we had pulled into a very good parking spot, a more mature staff person saw our VIP parking, and we parked much, much, much closer.  When you're leaving that makes a huge difference!  

We got in the very short, and very fun front of stage line.  A lady in line ahead of us had brought cases of beer that you can't take into the venue so she just offered it to everyone in line.  "Free beer behind the tree!" greeted each new person in line.  Staff came up the line and put on our wristbands while we waited -- one for the show and one for the bar, and they didn't bother carding anyone who was already holding a beer.  But trust me, we were all old!  We made friends with the couple in line ahead of us, Jennifer and Rick.  We ran into them all night, and they gave us a great tip about visiting Gruene the next day.  We all agreed the night was already a 10.5 on a scale of 3 and that was just standing in line.  

When the "doors" opened, we found great seats right away, and that's all there is in the front of stage seating -- great seats!  I took a few terrible pics, but I always remember what Bobby Bare, Jr. said about looking out at an audience and all you see are smartphones in front of their faces, and I paraphrase, it's like making love to someone reading a magazine.  And lucky for me the pros take pics anyways!  And there's an NSFW article about the show the night we went as well, in case you're wondering what they sang.  But basically they sang every song you know of, and a couple others, and it was amazing.  Apparently Willie and Merle never performed together at the first show on Thursday, and there was some dissappointment, and on Friday they did perform together!  Which was awesome.

We made friends with our seat neighbors, whose names escaped me immediately but they gave us a great tip about Lake Travis and Oasis for the next day.  We hadn't had dinner, so we had show food which brings low expectations, but I discovered my new favorite food:  the beef brisket sandwich!  

I would like to have said hello to Merle while he was performing, but I was too shy.  After his set, I approached a staff guy and asked if he thought I could go back to his bus and say hi, to which the staff guy said, "Heh.  No."  At least I tried!  

Merle singing My Favorite Memory:

Silver Wings

Friends.  This was the shortest, and most epic trip it's hard to wrap up.  But I'm trying.  I've made collages of all the worst/most boring pics that I just can't leave out, because they all mean too darn much.  And I've sorted this into four posts -- one for each day -- all named for Merle Haggard songs.

We drove ourselves to the airport for a change to give Mark's dad the day off -- thanks Albert!  We left so early, and still didn't have time to eat before getting on the plane.  Those Seatac ads must assume you've gone to the airport the night before, I swear.  Everything went as per usual at the airport, except after I got through security and I'm putting my purse back on, etc. and realize Mark's not there.  Thank goodness he's just getting his hands swabbed for gunshot residue, not getting the private search.  Like this is normal now, but apparently it is.  Anywho, uneventful flight, typically awful food (I blame you Tom Douglas) (seriously do not put your name on this stuff) (I have written complaints to Lean Cuisine and received personalized apologies and coupons for much less aggregious food errors).

Anywho, San Antonio!  First stop, picked up the rental car from Hertz.  We got a Kia Soul and had serious ambivelence about whether we'd like it, but we loved it!  Mark fit and I was comfortable, and for a couple with a one foot plus height difference it's a tall order (no pun intended, but since I'm leaving it in, now it's totally intended).

Next up, the bed and breakfast!  We decided to stay in a few different places to maximize our time in different cities, and stay in different sorts of hotels.  We LOVED O'Casey's Bed & Breakfast.  First of all, very reasonably priced.  Second of all, they sent very thorough information after we'd made the reservation, and a follow-up text the day of our arrival since we'd be checking in after their "office" hours.  Everything worked like a charm, and if I were just a skosh better at reading, we would have missed one of our housemates and getting the pic of us below.  As it is, I couldn't figure out how to lock the front door when we left (due to the not reading) so we were hanging around when our housemate showed up and offered to lock the door after us.  Thank you Judy!  This was also our first round of introducing ourselves to complete strangers and then proceeding to have an actual conversation.  As you might have noticed, this never happens here.

Downstairs -- the key rack, typewriter, record player -- just like home, but cuter and uncluttered!

Our room -- daybed, our bed, private bathroom, closet complete with refrigerator, microwave and electric water kettle for FRENCH PRESS COFFEE.  God bless Texas.  Basket with complimentary chips and water.

Mark looking up cabs on the phone while I surreptitiously take pics!  Absolutely no luck with cabs -- Mark talked to several cab companies that didn't have cars in our area, or could get to us in 45 minutes to three hours, or just didn't talk so Mark gave up.  Entree vous our very first Uber experience!  Mark downloaded the app, and our ride was there in about six minutes.  Nice guy, clean car, safe ride and interesting story.  I can't tell you how convenient Uber is -- you don't even need to know where you are, because it works with GPS.  You don't need to know exactly where you're going either as a guy that drives around town for a hobby or a living understands where to drop you off when you vaguely ask to go to the Riverwalk or the Capitol.  And when you have driven yourself, spent 30 minutes looking for a place to park, then spent $20 on said parking spot, then skip the cocktails because you have to drive again to get home, Uber at $6 each way this trip seems like a freaking luxury.  A couple days later and we would be out of luck as San Antonio instituted regulations effectively creating a ban on Uber.  

Our housemate Judy took the pic of us on the porch, and I took a pic looking up the sunny street in this really cute neighborhood.

Just a White-winged Dove.  We bought a Birds of Central Texas, and I think that's the most useful thing for identifying birds.  Instead of wading through hundreds of unlikely suspects, you can find the typical bird, and the guide fits in your glovebox.  

Everywhere we went sounded like the middle of the rainforest -- I have never heard so many, and such loud birds.  We wondered if it was just because they are different birds than we're used to, and you quit hearing the things you hear everyday, but nope.  Birds are louder in Texas, or louder birds (doves, pigeons & grackles) love Texas.

The female Great-tailed Grackle.  She was really moving so I don't have a single good picture, but you get the idea.  We'll see a male later.  Well we'll see hundreds, they're like crows there.  But prettier!

Finally, dinner!  We ate at Saltgrass on the Riverwalk.  The Riverwalk is like Disneyland without rides or characters.  Tons of people, stuff to look at, restaurants, bars, noise and birds!!!  And of course there's a river, complete with boats and ducks.  So Saltgrass -- they were very busy, and we wanted to sit outside so there was a wait.  They gave us a pager and we continued walking around, and then went to the bar to wait.  And wait.  I began to worry they forgot us, Mark asked if they had a table ready and I think they took pity on us because we were seated upstairs on the balcony right away.  I don't usually bore you with the entire blow by blow on what we ordered, but when you go please just order exactly what we did and you will not be disappointed:  Shrimp & Chicken Enbrochette, Maudeen’s Center-Cut Filet, Asparagus and Mark might have had the New York Strip.  Both the dinners came with a delicious Caesar Salad, and the bread for the table was like the pretzel bread at John Howie's.  Sometimes you feel rushed at a restaurant, and you haven't even finished the appetizer before they bring out your entree, or worse they bring it all together just to move it along, but not so here.  We were just remarking that they had such a nice leisurely pace, and maybe it was a Texas thing, when our waitress came up to apologize because our dinners had come but the server got the tables mixed up, and served them to someone else who started eating and never realized it wasn't what they ordered!  LOL.  The dinners were worth the wait, and when the bill came they discounted the cost of both steak dinners.  The only thing better than filet is free filet.

The Briscoe Western Art Museum was closed, but you could still see some neat things through the gates.

Just through any of the alleys to the street along the Riverwalk, you're in the city!  The Riverwalk is so bustling, tree-covered and loud, you forget you're in the middle of a regular city.  A regular city with horse drawn carriages covered in lights like Cinderella's pumpkin.

The Yellow-crowned Night-Heron -- they live in the trees over the Riverwalk!  I am very fortunate to not have fallen in the river with all the time I spent walking around looking straight over my head at these birds.  I got a couple better pics later -- this was almost dusk, and the trees make it much darker and hard to focus without turning on the flash and being "that person."

Merle singing Silver Wings -- thank you Youtube.