The Stars at Night

Visited San Antonio Texas over Memorial Day weekend, made a long weekend out of it. Only used 2 vacation days, my gal pal was there for a conference and I was just there for fun. Remembered to bring the fitbit tracker along, hope I do for the next trip, will be interesting to see how many flight we record. There was some rain and a tornado warning, but nothing that ruined our outings.

Sights:

Thursday, 12388 steps

Arrived at the hotel, went out for dinner and walked around a bit.

Friday, 13145 steps

• The Buckhorn Museum: The saloon exhibition was a bit cheasy but the Texas Ranger section was very interesting. The ticket taker all dressed in Western garb originally came from Clifton NJ, he got tired of shoveling snow.
• The Briscoe Western Art Museum: Yep, western art and a stage coach and a chuck wagon. Was $10 to get in and well worth the price.

Saturday, 5976 steps

• Visited the Alamo free admission
• Walked around the city

Sunday, 15103 steps
Planned to watch the F1 race in Monaco that morning, but the bad weather from the previous night took the channel I needed out of service. So I started sightseeing early.

• San Antonio Museum of Art Housed in an old Lone Star brewery building, had a very impressive and extensive collection of art from various times and regions of the world.
• Hop on Hop off Sightseeing bus [website]
• La Villita An area full of arts shops

Monday
Made it out of Texas before the floods in Howston, our flights connected there.

Meals:

Charlie wants a Burger: Had very good burgers there. The hostess had lots of different catch phrases intended to lure in customers.

BierGarten: No Hofbrau beer, so had to fall back to Paulaner, the bratwurst was good, the German potato salad was not. Sat at the bar, the bartender mentioned he wanted to move to NYC and I convinced(?) him that he should. Saw

Saltgrass Steak House: Our salads were pre-made but were very tasty and the dressing was good. I ordered a too large steak which was excellent, Chef had ribs which were good.

MadDogs British Pub: A British Pub where the wait staff wore kilts and served Irish Food. I had a pint of Boddingtons which was great, food was just OK. Chef's cottage pie was mediocre, my steak and ale pie was better than I expected.

Landry's Seafood: Salads fresh from the cooler, they must have been stacked, they were quite flat. I had a thin gumbo, salty dirty rice and forget my entree already. Chef had seared scallops.

The Country Line: We both had brisket smothered with BBQ sauce and I also had sausages which were quite good. The brisket was a little dry, the mashed garlic potatoes was very good

All of these restaurants were on the River Walk.

 The Flag of the Independent State of Texas flying over The Emily Morgen hotel

 Surprised to see this kind of detail on a building in San Antonio.

 The Tower of the Americas has an observation deck and a revolving restaurant.

 The Alamo

 The Long Barracks at the Alamo, part of the fort complex.

 Market Square A large outdoor plaza/bazaar west of the downtown area billed as the largest Mexican market in the US.

 The San Antonio river and one of the tour boats, some can be used as taxis.

 Another view of the river and the adjoining walks, this a bit further north (up river) near the San Antonio Museum of Art.

There was a tunnel built to allow excess water to bypasses the San Antonio downtown area in times of flood conditions. [further info here]