¡Hola de San Antonio!

We have been experiencing a deluge of Texan -- if not Biblical -- proportion. In between downpours, we've managed to work in quite a few activities in the past two days, although we've had to do a bit of adjusting of plans on the fly.

On Friday, we went straight to SAMA (the San Antonio Museum of Art), where we looked at the psychedelic art exhibition and were joined by Amy S. for a lovely lunch on the covered patio of the museum's café, which overlooks the River Walk. It's just as well that we abandoned our idea of taking the river taxi to the museum -- all the while we were eating lunch, not one single river taxi came by. By the end of lunch, the rain had let up enough for us to walk a bit of the River Walk around SAMA. This is a new section of the River Walk, just opened last year, which included various art installations in the underpasses and along the walk. Near SAMA, we saw a couple dozen giant fiberglass fish (supposed to be long-eared sunfish, native to the San Antonio River) hanging from the I-35 underpass, and a grotto with stalactites and a scary face, made by a famous faux bois studio in San Antonio.

With the skies reasonably clear, we headed down to Mission Concepción to take a quick peak at the newly-restored chapel, and back downtown to El Mercado for a bit of shopping, and to a tweet-up at the Southwest School of Craft and Art where we got some free food and a sneak preview of several booths in the Fiesta Art Fair.

We awoke Saturday morning to the most horrific rainstorm I'd seen in years. Thunder, lightning, black skies, and rain like someone had opened a gigantic fire hose on the city. For the second day in a row, our plan to walk the Texas Star Trail was scuppered by the weather. We waited around until the torrential rains abated a bit, and went to the Pearl Farmers Market, which thankfully was under tents. Things looked better weather-wise after we'd done the fruit and veg shopping, so we optimistically headed for the Art Fair, which wasn't crowed and was quite pleasant despite the by-then misty spritz. The rain had seriously delayed the set-up of the sound equipment for the music stage, however, but loyal fans that we are, we waited for Miss Neesie and the Ear Food Orchestra to play the first few songs of their set.

A little before sunset, Molly and I returned to the I-35 underpass on the River Walk to see the fish lit up and to wait for the bats to come out. At 7:55 p.m., they emerged in groups and started swirling around, out and then back under to bridge, before taking off in search of their dinner. There aren't as many bats as live under the Congress Street bridge in Austin, but this was the greatest number of bats I'd ever seen at one time so I was impressed. We noted that the air smelled of guano and were careful to stand away from their flight path so they wouldn't poop on our heads.

That pretty much sums up days one and two in San Antonio. Stats (steps and expenses) to follow. Adios.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

$20 to check baggage.
No free nibbles.
Turbulence.
Chatty Cathy, cut the string!
Love my new neck pillow.
Miles between gates at DFL.
Rain.
I have arrived.

"Did you ever see Dallas from a DC9 at night?"

Torch of Friendship and Hemisfair Tower, San Antonio

So sang Jimmy Dale Gilmore, a true Texas troubadour if there ever was one. I don't think I'll be on a DC9, but I will be flying over Dallas at night when I go down to visit Rosenbeans and take in a bit of Fiesta San Antonio. It's been three years since my last visit, and five since I last went to Fiesta, so I'm quite psyched.

Rosenbeans will be my personal San Antonio Tour Guide (she's a certified professional). We've been working on a spreadsheet for the trip with her suggestions and some of my ideas. I want to take advantage of her expertise and knowledge of All Things San Antonio, so I thought we should do the Texas Star Trail, a 2.6 mile self-guided walk around the historic downtown, starting and ending at the Alamo. We'll take a river taxi from downtown to the San Antonio Museum of Art, where Rosenbeans is a docent, to see an exhibition of psychedelic art. SAMA is housed in a former Lone Star Brewing factory, and nearby, a former Pearl Brewery has been turned into the Pearl Farmers Market -- we'll be checking that out as well.

We've chosen several events from the Fiesta schedule -- some old favorites, including the Fiesta Arts Fair and the River Parade, as well as a couple of new-to-me things, including a Charreada and a tour of a Victorian house.

I'll be taking my mini laptop so that I can blog a few times from Casa Rosenbeans. And I may even be able to upload some photos to Flickr while I'm there. Be watching the internets for more about our adventures.

Cosmic Shift

I know it's not down to global warming or a change in my diet, so it must be that the stars and planets are somehow realigning. For years I've been an avowed non-joiner, but lately I've found myself signing up for activities. Not just any activities, mind you, but ones that involve exercise and/or participating with people I don't (yet) know.

First came the Pilates lessons, and then the hooping classes, which I'm going to keep doing. I've roped another pal into coming to hoop class with me this coming Sunday, and I'm trying to twist the arm of another pal.

The latest is that this week I became a charter member of the Northampton Camera Club. Six people attended the initial meeting of the club, and we agreed to try to meet on a monthly basis to share and critique photos. We may do some assignments that we can work on in between meetings, or we might have some group photo rambles. The whole thing is pretty much TBA at the moment. No one else in the group uses Flickr, so my task is to walk them through the process of getting an account. And I'm to set up a Flickr group for the club.

And if this wasn't enough, I'm thinking of joining an almost-weekly knitting group that meets in one of the downtown Noho pizza parlors. I don't know what's gotten into me with all this joining.

Deep Midwinter

It's cold here. Really, really cold. It would be one thing if we had lots of fluffy, white, snowy loveliness to look at from inside our warm houses, but no. We haven't had a proper snowfall in weeks, and what we've got on the ground is in dirty, frozen blobs at the side of the road. All this cold makes it physically and psychologically hard to do much of anything but watch tv (I'm almost through all of Six Feet Under and am just beginning Season 1 of Glee), knit and play around on the internets. Each night when I settle down on the sofa with my knitting, I ask myself, "What shall it be tonight? A funeral or a musical number?"

I finished my big, warm cardigan a couple weeks ago and then quickly made some yoga/pilates socks for myself. Turns out that they are also the perfect thing to wear to my Hoop Fit and Flow class as they keep me warm and stop me from sliding all over the wooden floor when I'm trying to hoop. The folks at Hooping Harmony had a sale in January on their super bling hoops. I couldn't resist, and bought a birthday prezzie for myself. The hoop and the socks are actually closer in color than this photo would have you think. I might not be the most physically coordinated hooper, but at least I'll be color coordinated.

When I got home from hoop class, I tossed my socks on the bench next to the back door. They landed next to this striped fleece beanie and I realized that the colors are nearly a perfect match. So, back I went to WEBS to buy more yarn for a scarf to wear with the beanie.

This Sunday is the annual Super Bowl Escape at WEBS. All afternoon, knitters who want to get away from football will gather at the store for knitting circles, door prizes and nibbles. I'm looking forward to going with a few of my pals and meeting some other Noho knitters.

I hear that another winter storm is going to slam into the Middle Atlantic states this weekend. Everybody stay warm out there -- or stay in and knit yourself something warm.