River walking

The San Antonio KOA RV Park is a very nice one, with pleasant walks, helpful employees, nice grounds, and generously-sized spaces.  It's on a bus line that takes you downtown in twenty minutes or so.

San Antonio's River Walk is one of the great tourist destinations/restaurant rows/pedestrian streets in the world.  We love coming here and were anxious to revisit it.  We decided to take the bus from the RV park rather than brave the traffic ourselves.

We had seen the Alamo on a previous trip, so we skipped that and got off at the River Walk stop and followed the signs down to a branch of the San Antonio River, which is fifteen feet or so below the San Antonio streets.  It's a magical place.  The River Walk is spectacular all through the year, with strings of white lights along the banks of the river, but at Christmastime the huge trees that line the stream are laced with multicolored lights, and it's even more festive.

The canal was crowded with boats carrying sightseers up and down, the walkways full of families and couples enjoying the mild Texas evening.  There are no guardrails along the narrow, winding pathways to keep people from falling into the drink, and I've often wondered if such an attraction could exist in litigious California.  It seems that drunks (and there are a lot of margaritas served there), boisterous children, unsteady seniors, and horseplaying kids of all ages must fall in from time to time.  But a Wikipedia search tells me that the depth of the canal is only about three feet along the River Walk, so drownings are presumably rare.

We found a fine restaurant along the walk.  The Fig Tree had a quail appetizer with pate and apples - sensational and our favorite dish.  Nice wine list with more California wines than anything else.  I asked the waitress how her Texas wines were, and she was honest enough to advise us to stick with the California product.

We're  supposed to have Christmas dinner with some relatives of Nancy's who live between San Antonio and Austin.  She threatened me with bodily harm if I didn't get my hair cut and present a less hayseed appearance.  So we drove downtown and I dropped into the Matador Hair Salon for Men.  Got right in, which was surprising until I learned that a haircut would cost $35 plus tip.  Ouch.  More than double what I've been paying Mister D in Scotts Valley forever.  But it was a pleasant experience and I'm in solid with Nancy now.