A hardy “Howdy!” and “Yeehaw!” from Texas.

Bratt has made it to San Antonio, TX. On our way here, as we were traveling the TERRIBLY DULL and ETERNALLY LONG stretch of road to get from NM to San Antonio…

I had some time to do some research on our new “home city”. I learned that it is the 7th largest city in the US, just slightly bigger than San Diego which is the 8th largest. Also like San Diego, there is a really big and beautiful park that is home to the city Zoo. This park also had a really cool dog park for the Hankster and Shmoopie.  The temprature here in SA today is in the 80’s. San Diego is in the 70’s. So it gets a bit warmer here, but since it’s almost Spring the weather has been truly beautiful. (80* is a bit warm, but I think it’s just a sample of what we will experience on the road this summer.)  San Antonio is the most visited city in Texas, I think mostly because it has the Alamo and Riverwalk.

We were very fortunate that we knew a girl who knew a girl who sent an email that detailed almost EVERYTHING about San Antonio. A huge “Thank you!” to Suzanne who we got to know, and love, while we were in her home town!!

So, here’s the skinny on our favorites, not-so-favorites, and the fantastic stuff we have seen here.

First is the uuber touristy stuff: the Alamo & Riverwalk. We were warned that we would probably see The Alamo and think “huh, it’s smaller than I thought.”   And it was, but not as small as I had thought. It just goes to show you what setting expectations can do. I enjoyed remembering the Alamo.  (Side note: at the Alamo we met a couple who was touring the US on motorcycle who were from San Marcos! Crazy!)

March sixth was the day the Alamo “fell” and we are encouraged to remember it.  Because of this we got to witness reenactments, authentic artillary shows, and oodles of grown men and women playing dress up and loving every minute of it!

From there we made our way to Riverwalk for the Mardi Gras parade. I had done some research and was very excited for the floating Mardi Gras parade.  I had visions of thousands of (mostly topless) people throwing beads back and forth and Zydeco music playing loudly.  So I emailed the organizers in advance to see if we could volunteer, sadly I was turned down. When we got there I saw why. There were about 4 floating barges and hardly anyone there to celebrate. :( It was a bit of a dissapointment.

BUT the Riverwalk itself was nice. There was a moment when Matt and I were sitting on a bench with almost nobody around. We were close enough to a crowd of people to hear the blues playing and there were ducks floating and bathing in the river in front of us. It was a moment to be thankful for. (I’m feeling more thankful since reading my cousins blog.)

I also like that there are not guard rails around the river, “shows some faith in humanity” my good buddy Andrew said.  Matt had read somewhere that about 500 people fall in each year, most of them men (“figures”, I thought).  However, we could not find evidence of this stat anywhere on Google. We did find that there are about 10 reported incidences each year of peeps tossing themselves into the River.  We almost witnessed one of those as a less-than-bright young girl made a stupid move to get past some people.  Matt grabbed her ankle as she was falling, but fortunately she just landed squarely on her ass.

As for food, we have had a couple great meals! Matt, as you may know, is quite the burger connoisseur. On our first night here we discovered Chris Madrids (9.5 on this burger blog). Matt described this as his Burger Mecca!

He actually said that his search for the best burger was finished. I agree, it was really really good. We ordered the Porky with cheddar –their signature cheese, where CHUNKS of it are melted over their delicious patty. We also ate and enjoyed a Timbo’s burger (7.0).  The burger was really good, but I LOVED these things called Shypokes Eggs.  You start with a mini corn tostada shell, put about 3 slices of jalapeños, cover that with a slice of white cheese and put a small circle of yellow american cheese in the middle.  Can you picture them?  They look just like fried “eggs”.  I think I could eat those for a week straight.

Aside from burgers, we began one of our days at Magnolia Pancake Haus where I fell in love with a waffle (pancakes were good not great). Yesterday we ate 2 lunches.  First at Dough (good, not great) and lunch #2 was the most amazing Korean BBQ at Ilsong Garden. I think it was the best meal I have had here in SA.

Lastly, we enjoyed drinks (and an intense conversation about, of course: Charlie Sheen!) at Liberty Bar with our new bestie Suzanne.  She managed to talk the closed kitchen into making us some of her favorite yummy potato slices.  These are grilled, not fried and served with garlic butter. And steer clear of Azuca in my opinion, there trough of tuna was not up to snuff. Like any city we have found some great places to satisfy our culinary desires.  We are lucky to have eaten our way across San Antonio.

Today we will head to Austin. A city that is about to expand and become the center of the music, film & interactive universe as SXSW settles in next week. We don’t have tickets, but we will be right on the edges soaking up all the music we can. We are also very excited to attend a meetup for nomads such as ourselves.  It will be really exciting to see and meet some like-minded people (you know: smart, funny, witty, clever, creative, original, resourceful, and generally spectacular).  ;)

See you in AUSTIN!!  Tally Ho!

xoxo

Breezy.