Not Vehicle Friendly

We went to San Antonio because it's warmer than Dallas. Not by much, only 10 degrees or so. If it's relatively warm in Dallas, the weather is perfect. But if it's in the 20s or 30s in Dallas, it's only going to be in the 30s or 40s in San Antonio. And that's cold in San Antonio.

The San Antonio natives don't like it either. They shut down the river taxis. They only run the tour boats in the evening when they have big crowds out on the Riverwalk. But when it's cold outside, and overcast, and a bit drizzly - like it was this past week - you don't really want to ride the water taxi, or the double-decker bus, or the horse and carriage anyway.

In the past we just walked it and didn't worry much. But this year, given the apparent lack of cartilage in my knee, walking wasn't much of an option. Had I known my knee was going to hurt like it did, I wouldn't have booked a hotel so far out on the Museum Reach. But I had no idea. Not to worry, we had a car and there are always taxis.

Attempting to drive around is how we discovered that San Antonio is not a vehicle friendly city. You have to pay to park everywhere - even at your hotel. We got stuck in the Rivercenter parking lot. You pay inside the mall and then put your ticket in the machine on your way out and the gate swings open. At least that's what happens in theory. In fact, we put a twenty dollar bill in the machine and ended up with 14 one dollar coins in change. Then the machine took our ticket but didn't open the gate. We pressed the call button and the young lady told us that the computer showed that the gate had been lifted for us. We assured her that it had not and asked her to raise the gate. She told us to wait just a moment and went on to do other things. After two more call button presses and 15 minutes, we finally got out of the Rivercenter parking garage. Normally, we would have walked there and not worried about parking, but I just couldn't.

Then we wanted to go to the Mercado. The only free parking lots (for people who want to eat at one of the restaurants) were full. The paid parking was for a full day and ranged from $5 to $8. We didn't want to be there all day. We just wanted lunch. We found some metered parking, but it only took coins. Since this was before our visit to the Rivercenter Mall parking garage, we didn't have enough coins to park. Again, normally we would have walked to the Mercado, even in the cold and drizzle, but my knee just wouldn't allow it.

First up for the new year - find a doctor and get the knee fixed. I made a few phone calls on Friday so hopefully, it won't take months to get an assessment. Second - I think next year we should go somewhere warm. Really warm. Not just warmer but warm.