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| Tina and Matthew's Bicycle Date Adventures! |
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| Tina Ready to Ride |
Monday, March 12, 2012 was the first official off of work for Spring Break of 2012. I’m a third grade teacher and my wife, Tina, is a 7
th
grade English teacher. This school year has been a crazy year for my wife and I.
That is thanks to budget cuts, larger class sizes and pushed emphasis on the new
standardized test the State is pushing out and other stuff! So this Spring Break was
one we were looking forward to. On this day we decided to make a date day via
bicycles. We started at from the Blue Star Arts Complex and our first stop was only a few tenths of a mile
away at Tito’s Mexican Restaurant on S. Alamo. We had never eaten there before,
but were very impressed. The salsa and tacos al carbon were mighty tasty! We had to park our bikes and lock up on to the rails of the porch because the on street bicycle parking stand was removed due to some red tape glitch.
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| Tito's Mexican Restaurant- Notice the black rectangle where there was once on street bicycle parking. |
While sharing tacos with my beautiful bride of the past 6
years, I learned she hasn’t ever been up in the Tower of Americas. I had to solve that, so that was our next
stop. It was nice to see some bicycle
parking next to the tower entrance although three of the four racks we saw weren’t
fixed to the ground. Tina and I hitched the iron horses to the rack that was
bolted down. We enjoyed looking down on the city and planning where we would
ride next. We spotted other cyclists from above and a new red public art statue
on the other side of the interstate and made it a point to ride over there.
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| Bicycle Parking at the Tower of Americas |
We decided to ride on over to the VFW hall and get some
refreshments. On first Friday rides, the VFW has been anti-bicycle, meaning
they will not even let you put you bicycle on their property, but today we rode right
into the parking lot without incident. We didn't catch any grief from anyone at
the VFW hall and they weren't that busy, so I doubt they even noticed the two bicycles
there. Hopefully, someday their official policy toward bicycles will change. For a place that is meant to honor those that fought for our freedoms
they sure don’t like to let cyclist or even motorcyclist be free in where they
park.…enough of that soapbox. We did enjoy our sodas as we sat along the San
Antonio river listening to the music playing.
Next, we decided to
ride over to the remains of the San Antonio Better Block Project and see what
was left. We took some photos of the Better Block and rode past the San Antonio
Fine Art Museum. From there we rode past Central Catholic High School and to
the City Auditorium which is undergoing remodeling. I was
ready to chill by the Vietnam Memorial on a nice lush green hill of grass when
Tina said, “Let’s go people watch at Main Plaza.” I have to give my wonderful
wife credit; she knew where the party was. At Main Plaza there was a live band playing and
what I was most excited about was that the fountains were back on! They had
been shut down for so long due to the drought water restrictions that I had forgotten
they were there. It was relaxing to sit with my wife and listen to music while we watch people. People watching it really fun and if you haven’t
done it before I highly encourage you to give it a try someday. We saw a teen age couple making out on the steps
of the Central Cathedral which is kind of funny place for Public Display of Affection
(PDA). We also saw a woman with four or five others come up and sit on a bench with
a clay sculpture and looking at the cathedral they added to it… we never
figured out what they were doing, but we had fun trying to guess. We watched the Segway tours roll through the plaza and
concluded that cycling looks more fun than those two wheel contraptions. We saw
another cycling couple who looked so cute, and like they were having fun
together. Tina said, “That’s cute. We should do that. Oh, look. We are!” Tina
had been trying to incorporate this day into her self portrait project. I made
her laugh and thwarted her efforts, but the pictures ended up being kind of
silly and fun.
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| Silly Face Self Portrait at Main Plaza |
After sitting for a hour or so, we decided to ride to Schilo’s
Deli and get some good German food. After riding to Schilos's we locked the bicycles up at a pole near
the Deli and went in to eat some tasty food. Once done eating we rode over to the Alamo
and decided to people watch there. At the Alamo we saw many things like a
college aged couple that obviously was fighting with each other, a thug looking
man with a Carpe Deim t-shirt eating a blue snow cone, etc. We talked with an older female park police
officer who admired Tina’s bicycle about riding along the river walk.
Apparently we can ride the entire main channel along the river. So we will have to do that sometime soon.
We ended the night by riding to The Friendly Spot Ice House. Their bike
rack was full when we got there, but we still watched several other cyclists
roll in as the night progressed. As we sipped our fruity drinks, and listened
to drunken hooting and hollering over the Spurs game while Jupiter and Venus
huddled over our heads in the night sky, we reflected on how this day was the
most fun we’d had in far too long. If we had not ridden our bikes, we would
have missed out on the smells of the mountain laurels in full bloom, and the
sound of the ducks squawking on the river below. .. a sensory buffet...
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Helmet strapped the top of the Hays Street Bridge
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| Art we saw the people making. |
