We are still here in lovely San Antonio. We took the challenge and ate at Chester’s Burgers the other night (the one located on Pat Booker Road). The sign on their building says “Best in town & in the state.” Well, we eat a lot of burgers, and I would have to say that maybe their sign isn’t current. I am wondering just what year this was that they were voted best in the state. Sorry Chester’s, but I even liked Whataburger much more.
We outfoxed the weather yesterday, as we went shopping! Well, we have to have some fancy duds by the time we get back home, so we thought we’d go shopping while we were here. It turned out well because we got everything we needed, and the mall parking garage with the covered walkway into the store was wonderful during the rain.
Today we started early and headed back to the Riverwalk . . . with our umbrellas! We got a lot of walking in and we hid from the short rain bursts under some of the many bridges there. We thought about taking one of the boat tours, but the ticket line was pretty long and not moving at all, so we gave up that idea. The tour guides/boat drivers sounded pretty interesting as they motored by us, but if you don’t want to wait in line, then it is better to get there early (the ticket booth near the Rivercenter Mall was moving much faster, but there was still a queue to get on the boats–that, however, seemed much better to us). We then thought about taking the boat taxi, but didn’t see any stops for it for a long time, so we gave up on the boats today and just walked. The exercise is better for us anyway, I suppose!
Here we are in lovely San Antonio. We decided to take in the sights down along the River Walk. Our hotel wasn’t too far away, as it turns out. We like walking and need the exercise, so after about 4 blocks, there we were. We enjoyed the walk and seeing this one bird catching and gulping down two crawdads. We had lunch at Rita’s on the River, while we cooled down in front of their fan. But I think we stayed too long . . . or not long enough . . . we started back to the hotel, and got caught in a downpour. But, hey, with towels and dry clothes back at the hotel, we decided to squish on through the water back to the hotel. Boy were we dripping when we got back–we should have taken a picture of ourselves–it was pretty funny! Maybe the funniest thing was me trying to jump over the very large water puddles at each intersection on our way back. Actually, they looked more like small lakes and rivers. My shoes were already wet, but I continued to jump over the water so they wouldn’t get any wetter (I’m not sure they could have gotten any wetter!). Maybe next time we should take our umbrellas.
Well, I guess I shouldn’t be so harsh on Mississippi. We drove from New Orleans to San Antonio, and saw quite a few cars on the side of the road–although I don’t think we saw as many as we did coming down through Mississippi. It took us a little longer to get out of the greater New Orlean’s area, as we had to wait for the fire department to put out the fire that devoured this car on the side of the freeway. It looked like all four of the car’s occupants got out safely, thank the Lord!
One thing we found out very quickly in New Orleans is to make sure you pay your parking fee when you park. Now, first of all let me tell you that we did indeed pay the parking fee. We drove downtown, found a parking lot, parked, went to the payment kiosk, figured out how to pay, made the payment, and took the receipt back to put in the car window. We didn’t take all that long at the kiosk–perhaps more than one minute, but not much. We got back to the car and found a bright pink envelope under the windshield wiper. Inside was a parking ticket for $24. We didn’t even see the person who was writing the tickets! We looked around, found the meter maid (I’ll bet they are not called that anymore!) and showed her our receipt. Welcome to New Orleans!
We spent 3 hours on July 1st walking around the French Quarter and the waterfront in New Orleans. It turned out to be a beautiful day–hot, but surprisingly not too humid. We also rode the streetcar out to the Garden District and back. It was warm and pretty noisy riding the streetcar. We didn’t have much time, so we didn’t go too far. We’ll have to explore more on a future trip. I went online and read up on the streetcars, and thought I knew where to get on. I thought they only go to one area, out through the Garden District, but no, there are at least two routes that I saw. For the Garden District, you have to get on the one that says St. Charles on the front. It costs $1.25 to get on, and for only a quarter more, you can get a transfer (you have to ask for it) for the ride back. I like to read up on these things so I know how they operate and where they operate, but it seems like I have a hard time finding out all the pertinent info that I need. Most sites give you information that is only half of the story, unless maybe you have already been there before or perhaps have this innate sense of knowing everything by reading a half-described situation!