The Great Texas Road Trip Thank-You Tour: 50. The River Walk

River Walk, September 13, 2018

Heavy, dark clouds loomed over the octagonal, 1929 Gothic Tower Life Building, its enormous American flag whipping dramatically against the quickly moving black band that looked like it could spawn tornadoes at any given moment.  We slammed the car doors in the uncovered parking lot and set out strategically for the nearest building we could find with awnings in case we needed shelter from rain, hail, or whatever flying debris the weather might send our way.  It seemed our luck of avoiding the torrential rains of this unusually wet and verdant fall in Texas had run its course.  We were headed to the River Walk, but I feared we might be viewing most of the day through water streaming down some cafe window as the world flashed and shook outside.   Yet, we forged ahead because when you are on vacation all you have at your disposal is each day.  It's not like you can rearrange your calendar and stay home and clean house or read through the storm, and set out on your picnic once the weather clears up.  All you have is the day, so you use it, regardless of the weather.  Tomorrow it will be time to move on to another place.

Perhaps that is the real reward of vacation.  These days we spend so much time insulating ourselves from the world.  If it snows, or rains, or even if it is just extra windy, we head inside, watch TV, get on Facebook, or do inside chores.  We really only experience the outside world on bright, sunny days, and even then, it is usually for short stretches of time.  We spend most of our existences in heated/air-conditioned cocoons.  When we are on vacation, we are somewhat forced out into the real world by the fact that now is  all the time we've got in this place, and we might as well enjoy it, regardless of the weather.  If only we had great enough vision to realize the same reality applies to our life:  This is the only time we've got on this place we call earth, and we might as well enjoy it regardless of the literal, political, or emotional weather spiraling around and through us, because when it's time to move-on, we will be moved on whether we like it or not.  The hours we consume worrying about things we would never worry about while on vacation is mind-boggling.  When on the road, you just go and do, and dress as appropriately as possible.  Life should be lived the same way.   

As it turned out, all that hit us were a few sprinkles.  We crossed some street and dropped down into the lush, watery world that is the River Walk.  I'd never seen it during the daytime.  It was less crowded, less festive, a lot less light dancing around, dazzling the mind with runs and streaks of color, but beautiful none the less.  On such a cloudy day, what was most prominent were shades of green: the lacy, almost black, branches of giant bald cypress gently swaying overhead and ferns, hostas and other shade-loving plants, tucked in the rich, black soil of flower beds between stone walls, walkways, and the green waters of the canal.  The river was doing its magic again.

This was the third trip of Marci and me doing this walk together.  The previous two times had been with our boys at Christmas.  Once Lloyd came with us too.  The River Walk is especially beautiful during the holidays, when the trees are lit up in every color you can imagine, all that light is multiplied in the undulating mirror of the river.  Everywhere you look is a streak, a splinter, a spark-- a flint, a fleck, a flash--of intense color as Mariachi bands, streets musicians, and congregations of laughing people score the dynamic scene.

River Walk September 13, 2018.  During the winter holidays, most of those trees are lit up with lights.

Visiting San Antonio today it is hard to believe the city ever existed without the beautiful, benign banks of the San Antonio River gently winding through the city center.  But the river once was not viewed so favorably.  It was pron to nasty, life-taking floods, so much so that military personnel were forbidden to go near it, and people were warned of "being drowned like a rat" if they ventured down to its banks (Wikipedia).  In fact, had we showed up 97 years and 3 days earlier, or on September 9, 1921, we would have been greeted with more than 23 inches of rain--in a single day!--and an incredibly angry river.  That's the day the streets of downtown San Antonio were flooded with one to twelve feet of water, depending on your location, after a hurricane slammed into the gulf coast September 4, and the tropical aftermath dropped 8,000 acre feet of water and took 215 lives across central Texas (Salinas), 51 of those drowned rats being residents of San Antonio (Wikipedia).

But what a way to turn tragedy into something amazingly beautiful and life-sustaining!  So, it is worth providing here a short, condensed history of the River Walk of San Antonio:

After the flood of 1921, the city planned the Olmos Dam and a diversion of the river around the natural bend located in downtown San Antonio.  Construction began in 1926, and if it were not for the San Antonio Conservation Society, which in 1926 put on a puppet show at city hall and took commissioners on canoe rides down the river, instead of having the river walk today, downtown would be graced by a concrete sewer (Wikipedia), as that is exactly what the elected visionaries had dreamed up.  What the commissioners lacked in vision was made up for by architect Robert H. Hugman, who on June 28, 1929 presented his plans for "The Shops of Romula and Aragon," the beginning of what would become The River Walk (The San Antonio River Walk Association).

We spent the afternoon and evening walking along the canals until our feet could carry us no farther, with an amazing boat ride to midway through to rest our weary soles and provide us a different perspective on the canal.  Although somewhat expensive, it was well worth the money.  The boat glides you along, and all you have to do is aim your camera at the next magical site.  Or, if you're so inclined, you can listen to the boat operator give a narrative history of the canal which your brain will dump before you ever step on solid ground.  Or you can take selfies.  I never do that, but in the enthusiasm and excitement of American tourism, I did.  I have to say it is quite the novelty.

The great American Selfie:  Steve and Marci Brown,
San Antonio River Walk boat ride, September 13, 2018

And then we did what you always do on vacation.  We moved on.  We drove back in the dark to our camp at Pedernales Falls where I spent the night gasping for breath in a hot, humid, claustrophobic hell.  But that is the next story.

References

Salinas, Rebecca. mySA.com. 3 April 2015. 7 March 2020. <https://www.mysanantonio.com/150years/major-stories/article/The-1921-flood-caused-death-destruction-new-6177194.php>.

The San Antonio River Walk Association. History of the River Walk. 2020. 14 March 2020. <https://www.thesanantonioriverwalk.com/history/history-of-the-river-walk>.

Wikipedia. San Antonio River Walk. 20 January 2020. 14 March 2020. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_River_Walk>.