SAN ANTONIO WRAP UP

Guess it's time to get the rest of our S.A. trip out of the way. There's just way too much exciting stuff coming up this week! First of all, I get to go wedding dress shopping with my daughter tomorrow. SQUEEEEE! Sunday we're taking the kids to see The Book of Mormon, and Wednesday I leave for Lucky Star Art Camp in Hunt, Texas. Woohoo! Meanwhile I've got one Circle Journal to pack up and mail off, another that arrived just before we left for S.A., all my packing to do, and a house and garden to whip into shape, since we have out of town guests coming the day I get back from camp! Soooo, back to day 3 in San Antonio (I told you it was a doozie of a day, didn't I?)...

From the Botanical Gardens we headed over to the Witte Museum, which wasn't too far away. I guess it's sort of a natural history museum. They had a great display about the native americans in the Pecos area of Texas, plus this awesome collection of "magic lanterns!"

Loved this weeping tree with the fern-fountain top!

Heading over to the tree house.

We had planned to head from there to the McNay museum, which was also in the area, but we were running out of steam by then. Too bad, since it turns out they have a fabulous display right now of props and gizmos used in the filming of The Nightmare Before Christmas! Maybe the Muses and I can make one of our day-trip gallery runs before the exhibit ends.

On the way back to the hotel we decided to stop in at "World Famous" Paris Hatters, family owned and operated since 1917. I was determined to spend part of my gift card on my sweet hubby, so this is what he got:

He said he could grow quite accustomed to having a Sugar Mama! Dinner that evening was at Boudro's, one of the few riverwalk establishments that has something more than tourist-grade food.

They do a mighty fine guacamole, prepared tableside! We ended the day with drinks at an outdoor cafe down on the riverwalk, the best place in the world to people-watch!

The next morning I was up before dawn as usual, headed for my bagel joint -- my favorite time of day to be wandering the streets of any city.

We had pretty much run out of energy by then, so we decided to take it easy and do some shopping at Rivercenter Mall, then go to see the movie Rush (very good!). I remember when Rivercenter was the hot new thing. Hard to believe that was about 20 years ago! It has obviously seen better days. I was also brokenhearted to see that the lovely old downtown Joskes/Dillards had closed. On the upside, there were signs all over the place about the new, improved Rivercenter that is in the works, one that will incorporate both the old Dillards and the mall.  It started raining pretty hard during our siesta, so we changed our dinner plans and just popped over to Acenar, a really nice Mexican restaurant that was right next to our hotel.

I guess Hubby was getting tired of never getting to take a bite until I had finished taking my pictures. I took the hint and put my camera away.

On our last morning I thought we'd just check out of the hotel and grab some breakfast on the way home, but Hubby had one last adventure up his sleeve...

breakfast at the St. Anthony Hotel, overlooking Travis Park.

Is there anything better than a proper pot of tea? It's just so, well, civilized. The perfect ending to a perfect trip!