Tuesday, January 15, 2013

BEER, BEIBER, BOATS & BURGERS - SAN ANTONIO STYLIN'

Saturday, 12 January 2013 – a lazy start to the weekend for us at Dave & Kay’s. Their daughter Katie and her husband Luke and their three kids Sawyer, Jimmy and Betty were coming over for a home –made breakfast and a wander through the local park. The weather continued to favour us with a warm day despite being overcast – locals were wandering around in t-shirts and shorts! For brekkie, Kay whipped up her secret family pecan cinnamon buns with goof; we are lucky enough to be included in the family so we now have the recipe!! Apparently ‘goof’ makes you goofy so to help run the crazy out of everyone, we all went for a walk around their local park, climbing trees and squirrel spotting! We then spent a quiet afternoon nursing Chloe and stalking 3-Car (the house cats) and catching up some more with Kay and Dave before they took us to their favourite Mexican restaurant Povelos for a late lunch of fajitas, enchiladas and burritos.
Mexican lunch @ Polvos, Austin TX
They also apparently make a mean margherita but as I was driving down to San Antonio shortly, I wasn’t able to put that claim to the test! Dave and Justyn enjoyed a couple of Mexican beers though… the winner there a beer called Victoria! After lunch, we farewelled Kay and Dave who had been the most generous hosts and they dropped us at the airport where we picked up our car for the driving portion of our holiday. I thought I’d booked a Dodge Avenger but the lady at the care hire place was having a bad day and we had quite a bit of trouble getting a car – I really didn’t want to drive a Toyota Corolla or a Ford Focus! I wanted a car with some American heritage! In the end after she tried to upsell us to a BMW 5 and a Lexus, we settled on a Chrysler Cruze (yes, I know its just the Holden Cruze rebadged…) Oh well, we were on our way! San Antonio was a little over 80 miles to the south of Austin which equated to about a 90 minute drive. We loaded up the White Kitty (the name of our car), programmed Simon (our GPS) and headed out onto the Interstate. It was a pretty uneventful drive until we neared San Antonio when we drove into the middle of the start of two major happenings and people trying to get to them– Monster Truck Jam at the Alamodrome and a Justin Beiber concert at the AT&T Center… It took us over an hour to travel what Simon predicted should have taken 6 minutes! I was caught in the wrong lane a couple of times and pushed my way in hoping the truck I was nosing ahead of was a Beiber-loving fan and not off to the Monster Trucks toting their guns on their gun racks! My stereotyping was completely unfounded as the San Antonian’s were very lenient in letting people in! We finally made it to the Westin Riverwalk, left the car with the valet and after checking in, set off to explore the famous Riverwalk area of San Antonio. The night was still quite warm, although a change was expected and the Riverwalk was just beautiful.
San Antonia Riverwalk at night
The San Antonio River Walk (also known as Paseo del Río) is a network of walkways along the banks of the San Antonio River, one story beneath the streets of Downtown underneath the level where cars drive. It is lined by bars, shops and restaurants with trees, gardens and waterfalls giving it an ethereal, almost otherworldly feel. Strolling along the paths, you have no idea of the city bustle going on above you. It is spectacular. As we had eaten lunch late, we decided to jump on the last river cruise and take a tour of the waterways. Our gondolier Dave ferried us around the 5 miles of waterways pointing out the sights and history for 40 minutes. After the rivercruise, we felt like a little bite so headed to the Hard Rock Café for a burger and mac ‘n cheese before wandering back to the hotel for a well deserved sleep.

No comments:

Post a Comment