Bike Trip Update - Day 7 - Floresville to San Antonio, TX

Today was a short day, only 30 miles, so we would have time to explore San Antonio. We stayed in the hostel, and I had called ahead and learned that they close from 12 to 4, so if we want to get checked in and showered before we go hang out in San Antonio, we'd better hop to it and get cracking and hit the road no dawdling around.

You know what that means.



Here's Jim fixing his flat tire at 11:20, eight miles from the hostel.

We got there at 12:01, and annoyed the hostel lady who was late for lunch because of us.

Here is what you see when you roll up to the hostel. This is the Bullas Mansion. General Bullas ran the Indians out of Texas.



It's a fancy Bed and Breakfast. Oh, you want the hostel? That's the shed next door.



Here's our bunks.



As far as hostels go, it wasn't so great. It's not near anything, the common areas are minimal, and they lock everything up tight at 10:00 PM. There are cheap motels closer to downtown that would have been a better choice.

After we got showered, we set off on our mission of discovery of San Antonio.

First, there was lunch at Sam's Burger Joint, where the burgers are very large and the buns are branded with a branding iron like a cow.



Just up the street from Sam's is the Pearl Brewery. They have a big Pabst neon sign on the top of it.



(Quick aside: I saw a Lone Star beer truck the other day. It had this slogan on the side: "Lone Star - the National Beer of Texas". How true.)

We caught a bus downtown and wandered over to the Alamo!



We walked all over the Alamo. The Alamo does not in fact have a basement with stolen bicycles. What was once the chapel is rebuilt as a "Memorial to Texas Liberty". There are some walls remaining from the original mission compound.



And there is a big memorial obelisk with a barbie-doll crotch.



With the names of all the martyrs to liberty. Did you know James Brown was at the Alamo? HUNH!



I think there is an interesting lesson in the Alamo. A bunch of guys from rural America, places like Kentucky and Tennessee and Texas, figure they can go invading and push around the brown guys, and wind up getting massacred. Hmmmm. I'm surprised the Alamo is not more popular among our Middle Eastern friends.

After the Alamo visit, we went to the Riverwalk and pursued electrolyte replenishment therapy.



We did a couple more quests. First, there was Jim's mission, which to me was a blatant exercise in futility, but I have a great appreciation for futile quests. It seems he has this T-shirt that a former girlfriend gave him 15 years ago, and she got it in San Antonio. It's falling apart and he wants another one. She e-mailed him last week and said just exactly where the T-shirt shop was. Fifteen years ago. So we went on a 20 block walk to establish that the T-shirt shop is no longer there, and no stores currently there remember anything about a T-shirt shop.

Next was my quest. I left my bike flag in the motel in Floresville. I was not concerned. Jim pointed it out, and I said "Oh well. I don't think it was doing much anyway." Jim was very appalled and described how many times cars have been slamming on their brakes when they come over a hill and see me and suggested it would be a very good idea to find a new flag. No problem, the bike shop was about three blocks from Riverwalk, and I now have a new bright red flag.

Here is the route for today. We now have hills, but nothing bad. A good chunk of this was on Old Corpus Christi road, which is smooth, scenic, and traffic free. There might be a few loose dogs, though. Like one every house. Jim was ranting about how everybody has a fence around their house with a gate, which is always wide open, so the dogs can run and chase bikes.



Here's the MotionBased link.