San Antonio – Tower of the Americas…

During my three days in San Antonio, I mostly relaxed and puttered around town.  I utilized short, in-town destinations and GPS to take me to and through various neighborhoods with no real plan.  I really just wanted to see a bit of the city, and GPS took me there in ways that a tour guide could not.

There is a nice, but touristy, Mexican restaurant and souvenir shop area called Market Square, where I shopped for a few small gifts for my family.  And a young Mexican woman at Havana’s front desk suggested I stop at the Pearl Brewery, a former brewery-turned-trendy-boutique-and-eatery area, so I went there, as well.  She also suggested that while at Pearl, I try an ice cream at Lick Ice Cream, so I did that.

I went to a Cavender’s Boot City, a big Texas retail chain for everyman/woman western wear, to find one of two new pairs (like I needed another) of roper-style western boots for country-western dancing.  We just have nothing remotely like a Cavender’s in the Northeast, or on the East Coast.

I went to another small western boot shop that I found online, as well, really just to give myself another excuse to drive around San Antonio.  I went to Rosario’s, a trendy Mexican restaurant, suggested by the same young woman at Havana’s front desk.

Each time any of these little excursions took me a ways from the downtown area, I would notice a very tall, modern tower, similar to the Seattle Space Needle, out in the distance.  I never knew which direction I was driving, or which direction this tower was in, but it always stood out.

Eventually, I gave up and googled “tallest buildings San Antonio”, or something.  The result was “Tower of the Americas”.  Has anyone ever heard of this?  I never had…which means nothing.

Further reading revealed that it is in fact a well-known tourist attraction and has a rotating restaurant and observation deck at the top.  So, my next destination became…  You guessed it.

I decided to treat myself to lunch at the tower’s observation-level restaurant, which was really nice.  My server provided a few basic tower-facts:  725 feet tall.  Second tallest tower in the U.S. next to a tower in Las Vegas.  Able to see out some thirty-seven miles on a clear day.   You’ll have to fact-check me here, too.  Just going from memory.

So, during the day, I had no plan.  I really just wanted to drive around and see what I could see.  There was no way to top what I had just experienced during four days in the Hill Country.  I was recuperating and enjoying just relaxing.

My only real goal in San Antonio was to go out each of the three nights to a different modern, very large, country-western dance hall, in the hope of finding some good country-western dancing: Midnight Rodeo and Wild West…both with large, racetrack-style dance floors, and Cowboys…the largest, by far, of the three.  So, large, in fact, that it contained an indoor, live rodeo, bull-riding arena (I was actually given a personal tour of the venue, when I told a barmaid about my road-trip).

Unfortunately, I was finding out that in San Antonio, a lot of folks don’t even start to head out to dance, even on weekdays, until 10 or 11pm.  This minor setback was further compounded by the amazing good fortune for all Texans that the Houston Astros were playing in the World Series.  This meant that many Texans who would otherwise be out dancing, were at home or in sports bars watching each game intensely.

I don’t follow sports, but I can certainly appreciate what a desperately-needed morale boost this provided, especially for any Texan who was affected by storm Harvey.  It was just bad timing for my dance plans.  But, no worries.  I simply rolled with whatever situation I encountered.  In this case, I became an Astros fan for the remainder of my stay in Texas.