A Weekend in San Antonio
This post is long overdue but it didn’t feel right posting it when we first got home from our trip. What was intended to be a birthday and basketball weekend turned into one last adventure before the coronavirus halted life as we know it.
We landed in San Antonio on March 12, the day after the NBA suspended their season. Had our flight been scheduled for even 2-3 days later and we might have postponed our trip altogether. As it was, we knew it was going to look different than what we had originally planned, if for no other reason than the San Antonio Spurs game we were supposed to attend was no longer being played that Saturday.
I still don’t know if this is the right time to post this but will there really ever be a right time? It seems as though nobody agrees on the right or wrong approach to the pandemic and maybe that’s just it. We don’t all need the same things as we are not all facing the same circumstances. Some of us need routine and structure. Some of us need self care and a lot of grace. Some of us are compelled to keep up on the latest information while others of us need to limit our news consumption. Some of us are taking to the outdoors for vitamin D and fresh air. Others of us feel safer at home.
My mom asked me the other day if taking a trip so shortly before states started putting shelter-in-place orders into effect made quarantine life more difficult or easier to bear. I guess the answer would be a little bit of both. When we first returned home, the contrast of exploring a new city to living alone in my one-bedroom apartment was very isolating. However, as time has passed and travel outlook remains uncertain, I’m grateful for the opportunity I had to travel at that time.
I was supposed to be going to Palm Springs at the beginning of June and that is looking less and less likely. I’m okay with the fact that it probably won’t happen as I want to be able to go at a time when I can fully experience the city. However, the itch to travel is growing stronger by the day and reflecting on past trips has me excited for the (likely closer to home) trips I’ll be able to take in the hopefully near future. So on that note, I’d like to share my last trip in the hopes that it can help you look forward to future travel too.
We didn’t arrive in San Antonio until after 9pm our first evening so we were starving after a full day of work and travel with limited dining options. Since it was my birthday, we knew we wanted to celebrate and opted for Mi Tierra, a 24 hour restaurant and cafe that came highly recommended by multiple people. It did not disappoint! After dropping our luggage off at our Airbnb, Mi Tierra was still packed with diners at 11pm on a Thursday evening. With a full bar and multiple dining rooms, the place is a favorite of NBA players in town for a game. It’s filled with brightly colored decor, offers incredible food and even has a mariachi band that comes around to serenade you while you eat. I opted for a basic cheese quesadilla and prickly pear margarita. Tristan ordered fajitas and spent half our dinner raving about how the tortillas were so good, he was going to sleep with them next to the bed so he could eat more when he woke up hungry at 2am. I was sure he was joking…but he wasn’t, not about how good they were or about sleeping with them.
The next day, we slept in a bit before heading to the historic Pearl. Centered around the historic Pearl Brewery, the Pearl is now an outdoor complex that’s home to the Culinary Institute of America, dining, shopping, a farmer’s market and more. We grabbed a few drinks from the Food Hall and explored the area. As we walked along the waterfront, we joked that the Pearl had everything we could possibly need and we’d just move into one of the apartment buildings on site if our flight got cancelled. We had no idea at the time how close we came to that being an actual possibility.
After leaving the Pearl, we stumbled into an interesting looking restaurant a little more than a block away and decided to check it out. You would think it would be hard for a self-proclaimed carnivore and a lactose-sensitive vegetarian to find places to eat but Sam’s Burger Joint was just the place for us. Hard to believe we found it by chance! I got their vegan burger on a gluten free bun with beer from a local brewery while Tristan got a burger with alllllll the meat. In addition to having great burgers, Sam’s has a music hall out back so their restaurant is filled with fliers for upcoming shows and memorabilia from events past. Not bad for a place that looks like little more than a BBQ shack from the outside!
After our late lunch, we hopped an Uber over to Market Square. There was a large music festival that was supposed to be taking place at Market Square while we were there but it was shut down the day before due to the coronavirus. It was sad to think of the impact that had on many of the local vendors who had come to set up, expecting to have one of their best sales weekends of the year. At the time, we had no idea of the amount of businesses who would soon be forced to temporarily close or alter their business methods.
Walking through the market reminded me a lot of the markets I used to visit in Mexico. The booths and shops were filled with hand-crafted jewelry, unique artwork and pottery, clothing of all styles and every type of souvenir you can think of. We both got a margarita to sip on while we explored the booths, deciding which ones to come back to for our final purchases. We had both forgotten to pack hats and were in the market (no pun intended) for sun protection that would double as a souvenir. Before leaving, our curiosity got the best of us and we had to try the sour pickle beer one of the stands was selling. It was definitely sour and it definitely tasted like pickles! It was actually better than expected but we probably could have split a can. Drinking the whole thing got to be a bit much.
That evening, we headed downtown to watch The Saga, a light show that tells the history of San Antonio. The light show lasts about half an hour and the entire thing is projected onto the front wall of the San Fernando Cathedral. Located in the Main Plaza, the area is filled with food trucks serving a variety of food and drinks. I recommend getting there early to find a spot to sit in the grass, then grab something to eat and drink while you wait.
The next morning, we went back to the Pearl for breakfast at Bakery Lorraine. It was impossible to choose between all the fresh baked items so we ended up with homemade pop tarts and cinnamon rolls to go along with our breakfast sandwich, potatoes and eggs. We had hoped to explore the farmer’s market but it was another of the things already closed down due to the pandemic. We ended up grabbing a cup of Merit Coffee next door before heading back downtown to see the Alamo.
While I’m glad we visited the Alamo, I would definitely recommend reserving headphones for the self-guided tour ahead of time. It’s crazy to see a place of such historic significance in the middle of downtown San Antonio but I felt like we wandered a bit aimlessly around the grounds without having reserved the available resources. My favorite parts of the Alamo were the live historical reenactment and the statues of famous historical figures like Davy Crockett. Our Airbnb host also mentioned Concepcion and San Jose, a few other missions that he personally found to be more interesting than the Alamo.
From the Alamo, we walked further downtown to explore the Riverwalk. Although the St. Patrick’s Day festival had been cancelled too, there were still a lot of small celebrations happening at the various bars and restaurants along the Riverwalk. There was also an Art Fest set up along the waterfront so there were booths selling everything from hand-carved wooden flowers to jewelry to local artwork.
When we needed to take a break from walking, we decided to have an early dinner at Saltgrass. We were able to get a table outside on the patio, overlooking the river below. I’m hungry just thinking about their homemade bread (it was sooooo good) and Tristan couldn’t say enough good things about his steak. They didn’t have a ton of vegetarian options but that was to be expected from a steakhouse. I would still definitely recommend them and they offered plenty of seafood options as well.
On our last day in San Antonio, we decided to go look around the AT&T Center, just to check it out. As we walked around the outside of the arena and posed for pictures with the large statue of the Spurs logo out front, we joked about sitting next to Popp and made plans for our courtside adventures next season.
We still had a few hours before Tristan needed to head to the airport so we decided to explore a different stretch of the Riverwalk and ended up discovering both the Love Locks and La Villita. The Love Locks are right outside of a small wedding chapel and after couples get married, they write their initials and wedding date on a padlock, then lock them to the chain link fence outside. The fence is so full of locks, it’s almost impossible to see through it in some places! La Villita is probably one of the cutest little neighborhoods I’ve ever seen. A historic art district filled with artisan shops and galleries, it’s the perfect place to find artwork and decor for your home.
One of Tristan’s goals while we were in San Antonio was to eat the best BBQ in the city. We originally planned to eat at Smoke Shack but they were always closed by the time we made it back to our neighborhood. Unfortunately, they were also closed on our last day in the city but our Uber driver took us on a special detour so we could stop at Augie’s Barbed Wire which he thought was even better than Smoke Shack! I’ll have to let Tristan be the judge of their bbq. #veggielife
I had a later flight home than Tristan so when he left for the airport, I decided to check out Press Coffee, a nearby cafe I had heard so much about! It was the perfect place to grab a cup of coffee and read for a couple of hours. I decided to spend my last few hours back at the Pearl. It was easily one of the places I felt most at home in the city! I grabbed a gluten free muffin and drink from the bakery and found an open patio table out by the lawn. There were people playing bean bags (cornhole) on the front lawn while a group of young kids practiced their cartwheels and played tag nearby. Small groups of people spread out blankets on the grass and a man quietly played guitar two tables down from mine. It was the perfect way to end my birthday weekend.
Have you been to San Antonio? What places are you looking forward to visiting when travel is permitted again?
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