Sunday, February 18 – We had an uneventful drive from Del Rio to San Antonio, Texas. We are staying at Braunig Lake RV Resort. It is a Passport America park where they permit unlimited days at 50% off. It is priced right with the discount, but it is not worth the full price of $56/night if we were not a PPA member.
The streets are gravel with concrete pads for your RV and a concrete patio. The sites are full hookup and there is cable TV if desired. This RV park is quite large and your neighbors would be close if full, but fortunately we do not have neighbors on either side of us.
Looking right.
Looking left.
After getting set up in our site, we headed to downtown San Antonio which is about 13 miles away. We only had to jump on I-37 and were downtown in about ten or fifteen minutes. We parked in a church lot charging a reasonably $5 for all day! Public lots one block away were charging $20.
We then walked about four blocks to the Visitor Center were we stopped for maps and information. Of course, Marsha had already done extensive information gathering on-line, but she wanted to clarify a couple items. We then headed below street level to the famous River Walk.
If you've never been to San Antonio, the River Walk is a pretty amazing site! We been here before but never took the boat ride on the river. It is only $9 for seniors and $12 for adults. You'll have to guess what rate we received. It is a 35 minute ride. The driver/guide gave us an informative information about the Walk and building along the River. It was very well done. We enjoyed the boat tour thoroughly.
Our chariot waits.
This building is pretty cool to see from the water. Here is what it looks like.
But go around the corner and it looks flat.
We then walked around quite a bit and took in the sights of the River Walk.
San Antonio for whom the city and river are named. A gift from Portugal.
A little New Orleans influence.
These five bells represent the five missions in San Antonio.
We then stopped at the famous Del Casa, the first River Walk business on October 4, 1946, for a light lunch and a margarita. We sat at a table along side the river and enjoyed our lunch and drinks. Being a three-day weekend, it was pretty crowded downtown, but the river tends to spread the people out at ground level and below. It wasn't bad at all.
There is Paul saving our table.
We then visited the Hotel Menger which is the oldest continuously operating hotel west of the Mississippi. Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders frequented this hotel and most likely the bar as well. In the name of following these historic figures, we decided to have another margarita at the hotel in their memory.
We stopped at the famous Buckhorn Saloon, 1881, considering another drink, but the service was so bad we left. Probably a good thing! This bar is full of mounted animal heads and has additional mounts on the upper level which they charge to visit.
After walking a bit more and considering dark cloudy sky, we decided not to wait around and see the lights. We decided to head home figuring we'll be here for several days and can catch the lights another night. It was a pretty busy day, which isn't unusual for us. We have more days full of planned visits so y’all stop back and enjoy San Antonio.
Thank you to one of our followers, Moonfly13, for helping solve the cloud mystery. Remember in our last post, we showed a couple of photos with a line of low-lying clouds. Moonfly13 left this comment….Looks like a " morning glory cloud" - extremely rare ! Marsha did some research, and sure enough it is called Morning Glory cloud….BUT…so many of the articles on the Internet (not using any articles from Wikipedia) state that The Gulf of Carpentaria is the only place in the world the morning glory clouds can be predicted. So, Marsha did more research. She thinks they are really a type of Arcus cloud called rolling clouds. These type of clouds usually form ahead of thunderstorms. This article on MNN (Mother Nature Network) shows excellent examples of what we witnessed. We are sure this is way more info about clouds than you intended to read today…lol
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!
We never did the boat ride, maybe next time we visit there. We did visit all the 5 missions. We really enjoyed doing that.
ReplyDeleteLove that river walk and the boat rides fun and very informative. Also we enjoyed having lunch on the patio ( a few times) by the river, all of San Antonio is a very interesting experience. The lights at night all also a sight to see if you get a chance.
ReplyDeleteI love the info about the clouds! They are so interesting and beautiful. We really enjoyed our recent visit to San Antonio -- it's fun to revisit it with you! Now I wish we had taken the boat ride. We walked up and down the Riverwalk about a million times, LOL.
ReplyDeleteWe love San Antonio's Riverwalk. I spent a week there with a good friend to attend a conference. She had to be there a few days early as she was a board member for the organization sponsoring the conference. I spent 3 lovely days walking all over the area. The weather was absolutely perfect!
ReplyDeleteI think the park you are in is the RV Park we planned to stay at on our way down, and then changed our plans and stayed in Johnson City instead. Not sure yet how we are going home but we better get a plan together soon! :) That is the neatest cloud formation. Today is perfect here - a very light breeze and 80 degrees.
The River Walk is fun but sure gets busy on Saturday nights:)
ReplyDeleteWe have not done the boat trip on the River Walk. Thanks for telling us that it's done well. Hope to go to SA for a few days and will consider taking one of the boats.
ReplyDeleteWe loved the Riverwalk but it snowed on us and was so cold we didn't take the boat ride. Would love to go back again.
ReplyDeleteWe made our first and only visit to San Antonio over a long weekend back when we were teaching. We had two free plane tickets so we thought this would be a fun visit. We loved strolling the River Walk. We didn't do the boat ride either. Thanks for sharing your ride!
ReplyDeleteGlad you found out about the clouds. They were so interesting!
Such a beautiful area and the River Walk is spectacular. So much history in that area, and glad to hear the boat ride was done well...can't wait until we get there and experience all the area there. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWe've visited Buckhorn Saloon a couple of times with my folks. Love the area. Can't believe the prices on RV parks. Some are higher than motels!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info on the clouds, which I absolutely love to photograph! I had never heard of this cloud formation...fascinating! We love the River Walk. We stayed in San Antonio for 3 weeks at a park where we could walk to the River Walk every day. It was a wonderful experience and we were there during the holidays so we got to witness the River Parade after Thanksgiving. LuAnn
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