RIVER CITY: DAY II

The first thing I always do when traveling with my hubby is find "my place." Since he likes to sleep at least a couple of hours longer than I do, and since there's not a whole lot you can do in a hotel room without turning on some lights, I have to find a place to hang out until he wakes up. This time it ended up being Big Apple Bagels, just a block down from the hotel. Not only did they have great bagels...

they even had a Little Free Library out front! I LOVE Little Free Libraries!

Once hubby was up and at 'em, we headed over to La Villita, San Antonio's first "neighborhood." Originally it was a settlement of primitive huts on the banks of the river, housing for Spanish soldiers. Later, immigrants from France and Germany settled there. Remember how I said downtown San Antonio has two levels, one on top of the other? Well, this is the kind of thing you see at just about every intersection, if you walk over to the edge of the bridge/street and look down.

These days La Villita is full of great little shops, galleries, and eateries. I made a beeline for one gallery in particular -- one called Artistic Endeavors, which is the only place around that carries the work of my favorite artist, W.B. Thompson. Guess what I got while I was there, thanks to my handy-dandy prize gift card? Here's a hint!

Unfortunately, W.B. moved away from San Antonio a while back, and settled in the Virgin Islands. He has moved on to other things, and no longer paints these color-mad San Antonio scenes that I love so madly. The gallery only had five or six of his pieces left -- two giant originals the size of doors (and uber expensive!), two tiny originals that were in muted pastels and featured the modern skyscrapers I hate, and this medium-sized color-mad print of the San Antonio I love. I went with the print.

From La Villita it was an easy walk over to Rosario's on S. Alamo for lunch.

They even had puffy tacos!

From there the plan was to head over to the Mexican Institute of Cultures, on the Hemisfair grounds. Sadly, though the hours listed on the door said they should be open, they were not. On the up-side, we just happened to stumble upon this grotto. I LOVE grottoes!

By then we were pretty pooped, so we took a river taxi back to the hotel for our afternoon siesta.

Dinner that evening was at the new Bob's Chop House, up near La Cantera, with one of my hubby's oldest friends and his wife. John and Dr. Bob met in middle school I think, ran track together in high school, roomed together at UT, and then Bob was best man at our wedding. Alas, as so often happens, I just got to having way too much fun, and forgot to take a single picture!