Day 3: Caverns

As we did every morning in San Antonio, we woke up early and took the dogs for a walk along the Riverwalk before starting the day. We would always look for fish in the river and wondered why we never saw anyone fishing. It’s illegal to get in the water, but there are no rules against fishing in it. We eventually realized no one fishes in the downtown area because the fish don’t really come to those parts, which makes sense. After our walk we decided to drive to Natural Bridge Caverns outside the city.

The caverns start below a natural bridge, which is where the name came from, and we met up with our tour guide before going in. The cave is extremely hot and humid on the inside, so we were sweating to death the entire time. But other than the extreme conditions, the cave was interesting to experience. It is the largest known cavern in Texas and was formed by a sinkhole. It is 70° F with 99% humidity all year round, so you just have to go in prepared to sweat. The deepest part we visited was 180 feet below the ground, but there was a stretch where we could look down to a depth of 230 feet. Tours don’t go down there because there would be no way back up. They said that many people have lost phones to this expanse called Purgatory, so I was scared to stick my phone over the rail… or even lean on the rail. We couldn’t even see the bottom, but we could hear a rushing river down there.

And then on the way back to the city we happened to pass by IKEA along the interstate. Now I had been to an IKEA before in Denver, but the rest of the family had never been to one before. So they decided to go. If you’ve never been to an IKEA before, it’s a cool store to see once, but I didn’t necessarily have a strong desire to see it again. We spent way too much time in there, and now I’m nervous anytime we’re passing through a city that has one. We got back to the city and drove to The Pearl, a higher-class section of San Antonio.

Here we had to make a stop at Bakery Lorraine which is known for macarons. They have a wide variety of flavors, and each one is very good! It’s a little expensive, but I’d definitely recommend trying it if you’re in the area. The flavors we got included pistachio, salted caramel, and dark chocolate lavender, among others. (While there is some debate over whether it should be spelled “macaron” or “macaroon” the original spelling only had one “o” which leads many bakeries to use that name). Either way, they were very good, and the unique flavors helped made then stand out.

After running back to the Airbnb and visiting the dogs, we decided to take them for a walk along the Riverwalk again- except this time we wanted to go a little farther than we usually did. There was a small neighborhood that I had heard about called La Villita that is right on the river, so I recommended we walk there. It ended up being much farther than we anticipated. And for some reason, at this time of day, we saw dozens of water snakes in the river. We had never seen them here before and never saw them again, but this time they were everywhere. We walked through long stretches of Riverwalk and then along a busy highway before we finally reached it. I forget how long this walk was but we were tired of walking by the time we reached La Villita, and to make things worse, they had closed down for the day. And of course, being the one who recommended it, the rest of the family was not too happy with me. I would have liked to see it when it was open, but it was also kinda cool seeing this village abandoned. We had the whole place to ourselves to wander around.

We rested here for a while before getting the energy to walk all the way back, and Dixie was especially struggling. She was exhausted, and I felt bad for pushing her this much.

We ended the night getting dinner at Henry’s Puffy Tacos. Through all the research we put in for this trip, puffy tacos were probably the most recommended food choice in San Antonio, so we had to try it. San Antonio is a great city to come to for food: the blend of unique cultures present in the city each bring their own cuisine, so you can find almost anything here. Puffy tacos were good- I’d get them again, but at the same time I wasn’t completely blown away by them like I have been with other unique foods I’ve tried.

Day 4: SeaWorld

After our daily walk along the Riverwalk we decided to spend the day at SeaWorld San Antonio, the largest marine park in the world. SeaWorld is a nice park, but we didn’t really choose the best time to go…

The day we went was rainy, so a lot of the rides were closed down. We did get to ride some of them, but a lot of the roller coasters had been closed, which meant we mostly went to shows. There was one point where we were literally sprinting through the park in the pouring rain to reach a pizza restaurant for lunch. Of course the shows at SeaWorld are always impressive, so it was still fun.

We got dinner at a place called Auggie’s BBQ which was recommended to us by our driver on the day we took the bus tour. I was impressed with this place. There were plenty of options on the menu, and the food I got was very good. I tried El Matador, a fried brisket sandwich and was very happy with it.

In order to keep this from getting any longer I’ll finish the rest of the trip in a third post. Similar to Day 4, the others can be summed up quickly, so it will be just the right amount of time for that last story. Thanks for reading!