We left Fort Worth at 7.30am , the sky was blue, the sun was low and harsh and you could already feel the heat of the day starting to burn through the thin night cloud cover. The Trinity River was on our right and the grass was saturated with early morning dew making the rolling land a shimmering grey as we headed out of town towards San Antonio. The Interstate weaved around a little on the way, breaking the long boring straights. The trip was 4.5 hours and there was always something on the roadside, Rosie thought it would be scrubby empty prairie land….nope, there were industrial areas, laybys, truck stops, roadside services, houses, factories, squashed deer and The Operator swears he saw a squashed raccoon with only the stripy tail surviving.
We drove straight through to Gruene, (pronounced Green) a small blip in the map half an hour away from San Antonio.
Another small Texan town caught in a time warp from yesteryear and beautifully preserved. Originally settled by Germans and Czech immigrants Gruene is on the Historical Places Register and has many cutesy arts and crafts and knick knack shops.
The General Store is amazing , full to the brim of vitals and everything else you probably don’t need. A soda bar is to the right just inside the door and you can buy homemade lemonade scooped with a ladle straight out of a huge mason jar.
Gruene Hall boasts to be the oldest dance hall in Texas, c1878, country and Cajun musicians still play nightly in summer and at least 3 nights a week the rest of the year.
We went to the Gristmill Restaurant for lunch, it is an old flour grinding mill that used water from the Guadalupe River back in the day to turn the mill.
The restaurant spills down the bank in many tiers and glimpses of the River can be seen through the trees that surround and grow up through the mill. It was like having lunch in a giant tree house, the trees were a blessing as it was 27c in the shade and it was going to get hotter as the day wore on.
As with most American towns a giant water tower looms over the wooden houses, an extra water reservoir in case of fire. The Guadalupe River is so clean you can see the sandstone boulders that line the bottom.
Onto San Antonio, The Venice of Texas. So called because the San Antonio River flows through the town. We are staying right on the edge of the Riverwalk, cars, buses and taxis drive through the city at a crawl during peak hours like they do anywhere. However, in the city center of San Antonio walk to the nearest bridge and look down…..one storey below street level is where the heart of this city lies.
The river is lazily flowing around a beautifully landscaped and lush garden setting, tall trees grow from this level 3/4 storeys high, ivy drips from building frontages and dangles from bridges, cafes and bars have beautiful patio areas to sit in under the shade from the tress and bridges that line the canals.
Sitting in a pool of shade drinking a stein of quenching cool lager in a German Beer Garden in the South of Texas….Rosie and The Operator agreed, this is the most beautiful city we have been to in America.
The Riverwalk itself has a history that dates back to 1921. From the earliest days of San Antonio the river flooded repeatedly when there were heavy rains. The worst flood occurred in 1921, there was tremendous loss of property and 50 people lost their lives. This is the picture of The Esquire Pub, on the left, the oldest pub on the river, the water level during the flood rose to just under its balcony. Within the local city council there was serious talk of paving over the river and turning it into an underground storm drain.
Luckily , some creative and far sighted citizens waged a spirited campaign to influence public opinion to save the river. A brilliant architect was employed with an amazing vision for the time and the Riverwalk was formed. Extra drainage canals were formed off the river and subtle flood control gates were inserted to divert the river when needed. The photo on the right shows you the opening the boat is going through, this is one of the flood gates. They can be shut and the river diverted when there is excessive rain…a dam has also been built upriver to help with level control. The whole area was then landscaped into the beautiful garden of Eden you see today.
Rio San Antonio does narrated tours of the Riverwalk on their barges. They are the boats you see in all the pictures. A leisurely glide along the waterway was a fabulous vantage point and allowed Rosie and The Operator to get their bearings of the town.
Rosie and the Operator nipped to the Information Centre after our boat trip. Armed with our brochures we went to the nearby Buckhorn Saloon for an air conditioned break and over another cold lager, and, watched by a thousand eyes, we planned the next couple of days.
The Buckhorn Saloon is a crazy looking place, it has been here since 1881 and back in the day when you bought in a pair of white tail deer antlers you got a free shot of whiskey. The crazy owner was an avid huntsman himself and he also purchased other hunters mounts to hang in the bar. Teddy Roosevelt was said to have frequented the bar and he recruited his Rough Riders there….the cowboys sent to sort out Cuba in the early 1900s.
The bar is handcrafted out of cherry and marble and is still the original bar that real cowboys sat at. Upstairs a museum has been made showing exotic animal mounts from around the world, the last were added in the 1970s, It’s kind of a little sickening to see majestic elephant tusks, rhinoceros heads and an incredibly long narwhal tusk, the number of mounted animals in that building that would now be on the endangered species list would be incredibly high.
Tomorrow we have to beat the 32c heat and get out and about early, our plan is to hit the Mission trail and visit the 5 Spanish Missions before we have to break for siesta and air conditioning.
