After saying goodbye to Jay and Thayer, Tara and I headed towards San Antonio. We had a few days before we were expected in Austin, and San Antonio was on the way. I think. Honestly, everything has been on the way. We pulled in to San Antonio and drove around looking for parking. Finally, we found a spot where we could park the truck and camper. Before I could even feed the meter, a guy stopped to ask me if I had any change. I said no, despite the fact that I was actually putting change into a parking meter… Sorry pal, we’re on a tight budget here. So the meter was fed and I’m helping Tara get Murphy set to head around the city when another guy stops me, and asks if I want to buy a duffle bag…Totally random? He starts to go through all the Pros of owning this duffle bag. Needless to say, this wasn’t the greatest start to ol’ San Antonio. (side note, for some reason, every time I type Antonio, I actually type Antonion and have to fix it… I have no idea why)
Anyways, after politely declining to buy this duffle bag, Tara, Murphy and I headed for the “market” We were told that there was an outdoor Mexican style market. We had no idea what that meant, but we like outdoor markets, so we figured we’d check it out. There really wasn’t much outside… there were a few stores along this one street, selling your standard “Mexico stuff”. We had the multicolored sombreros, the mexican guy Marionettes, flags, boxing gloves… things like that… it was pretty random. So we didn’t spend much time here. We headed straight for the riverwalk. I didn’t know anything about the riverwalk (if you’ve been reading, you’re starting to notice a trend… I don’t have much of an idea about any of the places that we’ve been) and I’m not sure what Tara knew either, but we were both pleasantly surprised.
The riverwalk is set down a level from the main city streets. Along the edges of the river is a nice walkway that is lined with restaurants and outdoor seating. There is a huge range of places, some of which seem to be more authentic, to a Hard Rock Cafe, and some really touristy chain/cheesy places. After walking up and down the river, we stopped at (of all places) an Irish pub, to grab an appetizer and a drink. At no fault of San Antonio, it was hot… Murphy and I were sweating… bad. We had to get out of there. We headed back to the truck but we needed to make one more stop.
If you grew up like I did, you know, before PeeWee Herman was arrested for playing with his… well, his PeeWee in an adult movie theater, then you know all about San Antonio. In the movie “PeeWee’s Big Adventure” Peewee’s bike is stolen and he seeks out the help of a fortune teller. She tells him that his bike is in the basement of the Alamo. Peewee makes the trip all the way to San Antonio only to find out that there’s no basement at the Alamo. The Alamo is one of the places that as a kid I probably said, I can’t wait to go to the Alamo thinking I was going to ask about the basement and it would be awesome. Well, I’ve been to the Alamo, I didn’t ask about the basement, and in fact I was asked to stand across the street because dogs aren’t allowed on Alamo property. Childhood dream crushed – Check, Discrimination against Murphy – Check, and being really sweaty while doing it – Check.
We called it a day and headed back to our RV park. Surprisingly enough, in actual touristy areas, RV parks aren’t bad places. They’re a little more expensive than campgrounds (depending on the campground… KOAs cost a first born) but they have laundry, showers, and everyone there is doing the same thing, traveling the country. Of course you have to careful, some people feel it appropriate to loosely interchange the term “RV Park” and “Trailer Park”. Not acceptable. But this place was nice and headed to bed knowing that tomorrow we’d be up and moving along to a couple more recommended stops before Austin.
withoutwhatifs 