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Filtering by Category: Exploring

The Jungle Post

June 17, 2014Samuel Herbig

On Thursday, we turned our backs on Portland with all its quality of life resources to head back into the wild, making our way even further up the pacific coast line. For the next two nights we had two different campgrounds in mind, one on the pacific coast (Kalaloch) and one in the rainforest (Hoh).

Both destinations were in the Olympic National Park. There were several reasons I was very excited about the opportunity to visit this area. One is, that my favorite color is green. A favorite factoid of mine is that the human eye can distinguish shades of green more easily. Another reason is that growing up I read tons of books about plants and wildlife in the different regions of the world. If I recall correctly there was a time when I had thirty three plants in my room. It's not altogether surprising then that I'd be into visiting a rainforest.

First however we were headed for Kalaloch. It was at some point en route that we decided, for a reason that I can no longer recall, to stop at Kalaloch but to ultimately continue all the way to Hoh.

This ended up being a good decision, though stopping over at Kaloloch provided one of the most awesome animal encounters of the trip so far. See, Kaloloch is directly situated on the coastline. It is wedged between the roadway of US-101 and the surf of the ocean. We pulled over and parked the Omimobile intent on taking a short exploratory stroll down the beach in the afternoon sun. As usual I grabbed my trusty camera and we got on the way.

On the beach we found many things: sand dollars that were still fuzzy and yet to be cleaned by the water, hundreds of crab carcasses, huge pieces of driftwood, birds, shells, algae... All those things were cool and interesting no doubt, but the thing that will stick in my mind was when I noticed a bunch of seagulls milling about in the surf. At first glance I didn't notice and a couple of the birds just seemed unusually large. I called out to Whitney, "Hey Whit, look at these big birds!" I slowly made my way closer and just as I realized it, Whitney called, "Oh my, those are two bald eagles!"

Indeed right in front of us on the beach a couple of bald eagles were eating dinner (a culled seagull). Whitney and I had about 5 minutes or so, before they eventually took off.

We walked a little further and Whitney took a few pretty cool pictures of me standing on some driftwood logs, and then I tried to take a nice one of her and it didn't turn out so well.

We got back in the car for the final hour and a half of our drive to Hoh. We got some gas, two bundles of firewood, too. Not after long we exited the 101 and began the slow ascend up to the rainforest. The road wound it's way along the Hoh River. It's a beautiful drive going in and out of the forest as it grows thicker and thicker. Even though it was still hours until sunset it was already suspiciously dark driving between these huge spruces, firs and hemlocks.

Once at the campground we had to do two loops before we were able to settle on a spot. The grounds are on the bank of the Hoh River with the dense forest starting just beyond the parking lot and the visitor center. We put up the tent and got ready to make dinner as dusk was settling around us. Whitney prepared one of the best road dinners yet, with a super fresh salad (snap peas! raddishes! lettuce! pistachioes!) followed by lentils, with mixed mushrooms and a wonderful couple of links of white sausages. I mean we were eating like kings!

We cleaned the dishes, put the kitchen away and then overcame our social anxieties and joined the group of roadtrippers on the next campsite over for some CAH, with wine and beer. Thinking back now, we were pretty loud and I feel a little bit bad for that, but it was a pretty rare occasion so I'll ignore my guilty conscious and remember to forgive it the next time someone is inconsiderate and chalk it up to their rare occasion. That's how this works, right?

We woke up the next morning because it was hot. It was hot in the tent, and the reason for that was the sun. At the time the sun was pretty directly above us, because it was somewhere around 10 or 11am. Uff!

Seriously one of the most beautiful campsites so far

We crawled out and prepared a little bit of yoghurt with granola and fresh raspberries and a cup of coffee for breakfast.

I just want to take a quick second and get into a little issue that's been vexing us: milk. It's pretty obvious that fresh milk is not very travel worthy, because buying small quantities isn't cost effective and large quantities require constant cooling. Instead we had picked up what we thought was milk powder. We didn't read the ingredient's carefully though, so we ended up with a corn syrup product. It did make the coffee more light colored, but also made it taste like sh*t. Eventually we picked up some real milk powder which however comes with it's own set of challenges: it clumps like crazy so you have to mix it really, really, really well before you use it, but then it gets the job done, more or less.

Back to the story: I was really excited to finally get into the rainforest, but first we took a short walk down to the Hoh. It's beautiful down by the water. The sound of the river rushing by, the leaves of the trees at the bank. The rocky river bed and the little islands in the river. Between the rocks were thousands of different miniscule little flowers in all colors and shapes and there were patches of different moss and algae. Over the constant sound of the river we could hear the many bird songs.

We both, one by one balanced our way across a massive log to one of the islands in the river. I think we experienced that careful balancing act quite differently, because Whitney wasn't as enthused when she reached the other side. Whitney told me about how she hadn't liked gingerly crossing water over narrow pieces of wood since she was a little girl. As a cautious boy growing up I know that feeling of not getting out of your own head when you need to trust your body to it's thing. It's a tough thing, to convince yourself much less convince someone else that it's okay without "making them do it". On the other hand you know that doing it will give you that immense feeling of accomplishment and self confidence. That's a tough one.

We didn't walk across the log to get back to dry land. We opted for the (in my mind anyway) much more difficult task of wading through the ice cold river. The water temperature reminded me of that one time when I was in 8th grade and we went on a class trip into the Alps and on a hike came across a lake that was directly fed by a glacier. If you wanted to mimic the temperature I'd suggest you put cold water in your bathtub and then dump four 10 lbs bags of ice cubes into it. That should about do it.

Rather than go on a hike we decided to head down to Forks (yes, that Forks). I'm a fiend for sweets and trying to get better about it, but we'd talked about ice cream the entire driver up to Hoh, so when we drove by JT's Sweet Stuffs and they advertised ice cream AND free Wi-Fi, we stopped for both.

I guess we wanted to be fair & balanced and so we went down to La Push. Really we just thought we wanted to see the Pacific ocean one more time, but it turned out to be much more of a wildlife viewing expedition than we'd expected. We got down to La Push on the Quileute reservation and parked as close as we could get to the water.

As noted in the Best/Worst list post, it was later determined that La Push also would be our western most point on this trip.

At the beach we saw a good number of people who seemingly came here for a similar reason. A couple of motorcyclists, a 15 pass van of Croatian (?) lifeguards and so on. The weather was perfect . . . for Washington. It was cool and moist with a constant breeze from the ocean. The air was filled with that salty smell you get when you're at the ocean, seagulls and a haze that made it hard to see the tops of those iconic cliff islands just a couple of thousand feet of the coast.

We strolled towards the harbor, when we noticed the commotion the fishing boats would cause as they were returning from the sea. We saw sea lions, more bald eagles, golden eagles, seagulls and more vying for the spoils being thrown overboard. I was snapping some pictures of a particularly noisy seagull, when a family stepped out of the small house behind us to wave to their father as his fishing boat returned to the harbor. I'm likely romanticizing the idea of an intact old school fishing village, but there was definitely something nice about seeing that scene.

Fulfilled and with a camera chip fully filled with pictures we returned to Hoh. Whitney wanted to start on dinner, but I had to at least take a short hike in the rainforest and Whitney being the patient partner she is, relented.

There are basically two short hikes right by the campsite and so we decided to do the shorter one. The evening was slowly creeping in as we took the twisty path through the trees. Hoh's trees were similar in scale to the Redwoods we'd seen earlier and thus created a similar impression on me. Mosses, ferns and grasses, small bushes and hulking giants of trees. We saw many birds, spiders, a deer and the tracks of what looked like an elk. It's a wonderland, and one of the few places I've been to as an adult that makes me forget that I'm a grown up. I felt small and insignificant and at the same time a part of it.

Now, I was ready for dinner! Whitney's the chef, there's no doubt about that. I try my best to be a good helper, chopping and washing and cutting and salad saucing. In the end however it's Whitney who puts together one tasty camp meal after another. Thanks love!

After dinner we snuggled together next to a roaring campfire talking about this and that. The bottle of wine probably made it easier to dream up things we were looking forward to and to embellish the audacious adventures we conquered. Regardless it's nice to sit by a fire, even if it's just to look at the flames, there's always a fantastic quality to it. I miss doing big campfires.

Then we went to sleep.

Next morning we woke up earlier. It had rained overnight so our tent was completely soaked on the outside. Even before making breakfast, we broke camp, just in case it was going to start pouring again.

Whitney came up with the best breakfast idea yet: parfait. For about 20 minutes Whitney carefully layered strawberries, yoghurt and granola into a perfect breakfast treat and because they were put together in little cups we took a lovely morning stroll through the other campsite loop.

Once back at the campsite, we cleaned our dishes and readied the car for departure. Then we headed off back into the steaming rainforest. Because it had rained all night it seemed even more vibrant this morning. It was almost as if we could watch the plants expand and grow in front of us. Being the guy with the camera(s) meant I was running buck wild taking pictures of it all trying to capture the infinite detail and spectacular variety surrounding us. I'm honestly a little disappointed with my haul, but it really was a lot more challenging getting a good shot than I had thought.

Once back from our hour long hike (some would have called it a stroll) we bid the forest farewell and turned our eyes towards Seattle. We took the long way around the north of Olympic National Park, just so we could take a ferry!

categories Exploring
tags Hoh, Kalaloch, Olympic National Park, Hiking, Hike, National Park, Camping, Ocean, Pacific, Rainforest, Bald Eagle, La Push, Forks, Washington

I wanted to like Portland, I really did

June 07, 2014Samuel Herbig

The Introduction

I think I'm not lying by saying that Portland has been the subject of more conversations than any other locale we've visited on the road and I really don't think that's because it was that much more interesting or exciting than all the other places. As a matter of fact I'm sure that we visited places more interesting and engaging than Portland.

No, the reason why Portland had remained the most talked about place on our trip is because it's likely the closest to what we would consider for a home at some point. That's important, because really to me that had always been one of the goals of the trip: of all these places that we get to see, what is it about them or who is it there that would make us want to stay long term or conversely that turns us off?

Portland is undoubtedly a mecca for us millennials. I don't think Portlandia! came out of nowhere. I'm not surprised to see the bicycle culture embraced here. The micro brew scene is alive and well here. These are all things that we deem important. A move to a more local culture, something that's more personal and I think at the end of our time here that's a lot of what we experienced here.

Sunday

Whitney's thorough research had unearthed the McMenamins company in Portland. Essentially a company in the hospitality business, McMenamins owns several hotels, bars and event spaces throughout the town. We first arrived at their White Eagle bar/hotel to a satisfyingly gray sky and intermittent drizzle. We shook off the precipitation and got our room keys downstairs from the bar keep.

The only precipitation we ever saw, by the way

The White Eagle itself is an old live music venue, seemingly featuring as much local talent in it's heyday as it does now. The bar room is divided into a dining area and a more traditional bar area with a small band stand. After we'd dropped our bags upstairs in our room we got a quick bite there. As it's still a performance space, we were treated to some local comedy and musical talent while we ate.

By the way, aside from the local scene, politics, and environment, we also kept an eye out for local cuisine on our trip. That's how I got to taste my first raw oysters on Key West, for example. For Whitney being married to a German and for me being one of those, that local cuisine inevitably includes local brews. Portland isn't shy about it's selection and actually has some local players that did the micro brew before it was cool.

Right now I'm speaking of the Widmer Brother's, whose brewery bar was just down the block from the White Eagle. Though their Hefeweizen is the most well known, we tried other brews of theirs. After about 32 oz. of courage we decided to walk (!) to into downtown Portland.

I'd loosely picked out a bar, not really realizing how far away of a walk it was from Widmer's, but it really ended up being a kick starter for one of those long conversations we tend to have when we're not preoccupied with issues of the day, like planning ahead or working on the blog, for example. I guess, this particular conversation didn't necessarily have anything to do with the particular idea of moving or finding a fitting social context that we would both feel comfortable in. What we talked about was our impression of the social development of the west coast and how we compared it to the places on the east coast we were familiar with.

We've had many of these conversations over the years. Often I feel that I walk away with new ideas about the topics we had discussed. I like being able to hear Whitney's take and often try to take them for a wheel in my brain. Until we tell our ideas to someone else they just fester in our little brain box and it's often only after a good little jolt from outside that I am able to expand and explore ideas I've been thinking about. So this is really one of those activities that I really value. Sometimes I wished we could do those discussions more often, but then I'm sure they wouldn't be as fruitful.

The distance from Widmer's to our next stop at Bailey's Taproom was about 1.7 miles, but before long we sat down in a cozy corner with a cold beer. As an aside, this bar has probably the most beer-nerd-tastic tap list. It was basically a big monitor with a digital read out for all the tapped kegs, listing the name, ABV, origin and level of the keg. As a matter of fact you can go right to their website and see a live status of their kegs.

We rounded out our evening by hopping a few blocks over to the arcade at Ground Kontrol. Arcades and video games are not usually a part of our leisure time activities, by we were up for a different scene tonight so the pinball and DDR was. Just in case anyone was wondering, we're both laughably bad at DDR. Pinball worked a little better, we got through three, maybe for levels of Galaga. I also treated myself to one of my childhood dream arcade games "Cruis'n Exotica". I remember watching the (older) cool kids at the public pool playing the game growing up, so I was so excited to finally get my turn.

I came in 5th.

We returned home on foot once again and fell asleep quickly when we got back to the White Eagle.

Monday

Our plans to grab breakfast and explore a new neighborhood in the morning were quickly thwarted, after we realized that the place we had earmarked had closed . . . on the pervious Friday. Ugh. Luckily, Mississippi Avenue had a couple of other options available for us and after a little wait we got to fill our stomachs after all!

Really part of the idea of getting breakfast out at a coffee shop had been to start on a post for El Paso. I'd been struggling to put together a post for that part of the trip for awhile and in looking for a different solution we came up with the idea of making a graphical post in the shape of a newspaper. We had planned on starting to create (writing out and drawing) the elements for our newspaper over coffee during or after breakfast, but that plan fell flat. Our eatery, Gravy, turned out to be more of a brunch place and because of the line and wait to get a table, we thought it wouldn't be fair to stay at a table after we finished. So the El Paso post would have to wait a little longer.

Instead, we returned to the White Eagle to pick up a couple of rolls of film I meant to get developed, while in civilization. We headed over to Blue Moon Camera in St. Johns. Luckily for me they did 1 hour photo for my film, and so we headed around the corner to Anna Bannanas for more fresh coffee and to get this Newspaper off the ground.

The night before we really had come up with a number of different ideas to make a more graphical post. The newspaper idea was just one of a number like the comic strip, food menu or movie script. I really hope that we find the time and creativity to make one or two more of those happen. After we had settled on the newspaper, we figured out what kind of "articles" we wanted to write and then split them up and added little doodles to break up the text. We wanted it to look a little rough, perhaps a little like a school newspaper printed and then photocopied and I think we got there mostly.

An hour later, I'm back in the Blue Moon, to pick up my film. I was pretty anxious, because this was the first time I was getting back film that I had shot on the road trip so I looked through them on the light box right then and there. Of course it's a negative, so it's a little hard to tell if the colors came out right, but the light levels seemed more or less okay. I really would have loved to get them scanned, but it's so expensive (I think around $20 a roll) and I wouldn't have been able to take the negatives with me so I decided against it. It's unfortunate though, because I'd really love to be able to show some of them off here.

Later during our Kennedy School stay, I figured out a rough workaround: I took pictures of the negatives against the laptop screen and then let Whitney work her magic in Photoshop. So if you see any pixilated images on here, that's why.

Whitney wasn't feeling so well, so I took her, the Omimobile and my two rolls of film back to the White Eagle for a nap.

According to our goal to eat locally as much as possible, we found one of Portland's touted local eateries. Whitney's a pretty good cook, but that hasn't always been the case. Over the years I've known her, she has diligently honed her skills. It's true that in the beginning there would be meals that didn't work out quite like she had imagined. Now, on the other hand, Whitney does the whole, "oookay . . . let's look what we have in the refrigerator!" style of cooking, which I find mesmerizing to watch and damn near sorcery. Overall I think I grew up eating a pretty wide variety of foods, but since I've met Whitney she's been pushing the envelope (see the Best Seafood entry on the updated list post!). It shouldn't come as complete shock then that she has also been the driving force behind the fresh and local ingredients dinner option. I'm really loving trying all these new foods, too, in the meantime. It's really the first time in a long while that I've expanded my food palate so thoroughly over a pretty short period of time and because I am a pretty conservative eater usually, that's saying something.

Suffice it to say then, that we both had a wonderful time trying new foods at the Meriwether's restaurant. Deviled Eggs with Crabmeat! Steelhead beignets! Horseradish Cream! Dungeness crab risotto! We often share entrees, both to save a little money and so we can order, say, an appetizer of something we've never had, or to allow us the luxury of a dessert. I think that often times entree's are so big anyway that I barely make it through the entire thing, and it's such a pity to waste all that food when we can't finish our plates. So this plate sharing really has been working out for us.

Fat and happy we returned "home". For a few more hours we made ourselves comfortable on the patio outside to finish the hand written aspects of the newspaper post. After photographing all the elements we'd come up with, Whitney used her photoshop magic to make it the thing you see. By the way, we really try our best to keep it pretty clean on here so the title to that post was mostly born out of frustration from the traffic ticket.

Tuesday

This was probably out most well organized day yet in Portland. We cleared out of our room in the White Eagle and picked our breakfast spot, Cafe du Berry, primarily on it's proximity to the Portland Aerial Tram, which I really wanted to ride so that I could get a view of the city (and maybe, just maybe to take a picture). It's kind of silly to say, but I thought I'd get a better view somehow. Still, considering that the viewing platform is essentially the 9th floor terrace of the OHSU's Kohler Pavilion it's not shabby. Also, can you really knock $4/per person?

Driving and walking around Portland we had already noticed all the flowers and roses in particular in the front yards. Our next stop at the International Rose Test Garden wasn't too much of a stretch then. I'm still not entirely sure, how it came to be the rose test garden, but it's really not important. The gardens themselves are beautifully arranged flower beds with rows upon rows of roses. We weren't there during peak bloom, but still got to enjoy many different flowers in all shapes and sizes. Additionally, the garden is built along the hillside of Arlington Heights, so that through the trees you get a lovely view of the city below. I thought a lot of my mom, who loves roses and has a few beautiful bushes of them in the yard out front of the house I grew up in. They'd fit right in here, I think.

If you think one brewery is enough for this duo, you're dead wrong my friend. Sour beers have had some sort of a revival and it's no surprise that a cutting edge place such as Portland has a brewery devoted to brewing just sour beers. Crazy, I know. This one, the Cascade Brewing Barrel House, actually came on the recommendation of our friend Julia from back in New York. I'm not a sour beer fan really, but it's about trying new things and out of the six or so sours we tried, I actually could have gotten on with at least four of them. That's definitely four more that I would have guessed, so that's good right? Right!

Remember that I mentioned that we cleared out our room at the White Eagle? Well, that's because we had reservations at another McMenamin's establishment, the Kennedy School. This was certainly a bit of a fancy place, but it was just so cool that we couldn't pass it up. Basically, it's an old elementary school converted into a hotel/resort.

The guest rooms were spread across a number of different wings (we stayed in the "English" wing) while the other, bigger rooms like the auditorium, the gym etc housed all sorts of amenities. There was a cigar bar, a restaurant in the cafeteria, a movie theater(!) and even a little outdoors swimming pool. For our taste we'd done (almost) enough roaming around Portland, so we were totally cool with spending the evening here, soaking in the pool and then getting a couple of drinks in the Boiler Room bar.

I'm serious: if you go to Portland, do yourself the favor and check it out. I am pretty sure you don't have to be a guest to go and walk around and it's just a neat place to hang out and grab a drink in one of the bars in the school building.

To tick off one more box on the bucket list, we had made reservations at the Oregon Culinary Institute. We probably could have gone to a culinary school restaurant elsewhere, but come on, we're in Portland! The land of fresh and locally sourced ingredients. Plus, there's no way we were going to be able to afford a 4 course meal for $18 anywhere else, so what the heck, right? Since the restaurant at the Culinary Institute is a teaching environment, every aspect of the experience there is a bit like a classroom. Our hostess, servers and cooks are learning while preparing and caring for us and the other guests and because I was paying extra attention, I even picked up a trick or two for opening wine bottles. Very neat. The food was outstanding and once again, we got to try tons of different things.

Back in the Kennedy School pool, we both agreed: Portland was worth the visit. Would we move here? Maybe and it certainly didn't seem like a crazy idea, then again . . .

P.S.: This would go under "Wednesday", I suppose but I'll just add it here. Before leaving Portland for good the next morning, we couldn't resist checking out one of the farmers markets. We knew we weren't going to be near fresh food for a couple of days, while we were out camping so it just made sense to pick up some fresh ingredients to cook with. In retrospect, I think I should have just brought my camera along to the farmers market, it all looked so delicious. We ended up with a bag of granola, lettuce, a mixed bag of mushrooms, radishes, strawberries, raspberries, bread... And man, all of that stuff was just so friggin good!

categories Exploring
tags Oregon, Portland, Tram, Brewery, Beer, Food, Culinary Institute, McMenamin, White Eagle, Kennedy School, Rose Garden, Flowers, Photographing, Arcade

The Heart of Texas

May 15, 2014Whitney Lea

Since leaving Disney world there have been a few places and moments that have reminded us of a real world version of the Disney experience. San Antonio was one of them.

Can you believe we didn't have a single margarita while we were there?

In one of the first drafts of the road trip plan I had scheduled to stay there for half a day. At some point I decided to change that plan. It may have had to do with one of my best friends, Nathalie, endorsing the beauties of San Antonio and its Riverwalk.

Nat clued us in to the fact that we would be visiting during Fiesta, a multi-week festival that everyone in San Antonio gets really excited about. The idea that locals get excited by a festival that brings in tourists was a little unbelievable to me but I didn't dwell on it too long.

I did a little research on our drive there and it turned out that the night of our arrival would coincide with the Fiesta Flambeau Parade. According to residents this parade is the largest night parade and the third largest parade in the USA (after the Rose Bowl and Macy's Thanksgiving). So needless to say, I was a bit excited.

Since San Antonio was only an hour or so away from Austin, we elected to take the most backroads route there to do a little exploring and see some interesting terrain. (Little did we know that we would see more cacti and dusty plains than we could handle in the coming days.) We had hoped to do an art session on the way but had to put it on the back burner as the explorations pushed our arrival time later and later. We stopped in Lockhart, "the barbecue capitol of Texas" and ate some barbecue that was good... Better than most of the brisket I've had in my life, but not as great as La Barbecue in Austin.

The vegetable options were corn, potatoes, and cabbage bathed in a variety of dairy products and condiments

I will also use the Supergeil scale because it makes Sam smile.

Then Sam got out of the car several times to take some pictures as we drove down tiny roads deep in the heart of Texas.

When we finally got to San Antonio we settled into our room at an airbnb. Our host, George, seemed to know everything there was to know about the city and after a lengthy and very informative chat we came up with a rough itinerary for our visit. I am not kidding when I tell you that George could come up with a tourist plan that would require two weeks. Although I was vaguely familiar with San Antonio's beloved Riverwalk, George explained it further for Sam and I. The Riverwalk is a series of walkways lining the San Antonio river one story below street level, though it is open air. (This isn't the ninja turtles!) It stretches for miles and the city is expanding it all the time.

George's enthusiasm for the parade was nonexistent, but he clearly understood why so many people would want to go and he gave us a ride into the historic district while it was still light.

George had mentioned a food truck court in waking distance from San Antonio's River Walk and we decided to eat there rather than the mostly tourist oriented places in that area.

The moment we finished we started to follow the trajectory of every other pedestrian we saw and wound up right above the river walk. The San Antonio Spurs were playing in a playoff round against the Dallas Mavericks at the time and several buildings in San Antonio had banners cheering them on, including the Hilton.

I feel sorry for the guy from Dallas on a business trip here

We later learned that this hotel, the Hilton Palacio del Rio (wiki), was a milestone in modular architecture, which meant every room was constructed and furnished eight miles away and then trucked to the site and locked into place, almost like Legos. The bathrooms even had toilet paper in them before they were placed in the building.

Back to the real mission: get a good spot for parade watching. The streets were packed with locals full of hometown pride and everyone seemed very excited about this tradition. We finally found a place where Sam could get a good perspective above the crowd without blocking people and we settled in for the Fiesta Flambeau Parade.

After that we decided to stroll the river walk back to George's place. It took about an hour but we had a chance to really experience it. There were shops, restaurants, hotels, art installations, and gardens, making for an experience that was a cross between the Highline in New York and a boat-based ride at Disney World. Tourists love it (I saw a woman spend $372 on a huge bag of chinzy souvenirs for people back home when I was picking up postcards), but unlike most of the touristy things I've been familiar with in places that I have lived — ahem, Times Square — the locals actually seem to appreciate it and feel proud of it too. I couldn't blame them, it was really well done.

The other side of the Hilton Palacio del Rio during the parade and the dangerous underbelly lurking below

The next morning we thought it would be a great idea to check out the Guenther House because George had dubbed their breakfast "heavenly". It was good food, but the 99 minute wait was unexpected and not a great use of our time. We did manage to pick up a small cake that we enjoyed over two evenings in Marfa, so there's that I guess. Oh, and we compiled the Best/Worst List (see sidebar) and posted it too. We'll call the stop at Guenther House mildly productive.

After that we realized we wouldn't have time to visit the Alamo or do a river tour before meeting Nathalie's little brother, who is a San Antonio resident and also named Sam. Instead we headed over to the Blue Star Art Complex and discovered much of it was closed on Sundays. Luckily the Blue Star Brewing was not and we enjoyed a flight of all of their beers. I drank the majority because we knew Sam Herbig would need to drive.

Other Sam introduced us to Rudy's barbecue and then we went to play giant jenga, cornhole, and hang out at a bar to let the heat of the day get over with as it was in the mid-90s in late April.

While talking to Sam we got to hear his thoughts on living there and he confirmed that San Antonians have a lot of hometown pride, are enthusiastic, family-oriented, and overall very polite. He also pointed out there are 300+ pool days a year. We were glad to see how happy he was there.

Here is the picture of the two Sam's so you can see how easily distinguishable they are aside from their names:

We hightailed it back downtown so we could catch a boat tour of the Riverwalk. As expected, it was a very Disney-like experience. The boat tour we took was shared by a group of more than 30 college girls who were in San Antonio for some dance competition, the boat captain was a very sweet (and patient) lady also named Sam, and the boat stalled out. We did not have to hear "It's a Small World" on repeat throughout though. It was actually a pretty fun time and a cute little tour.

Smiling on the new boat with fully operational motor

The last stop we knew we needed to make was to The Alamo, a site that was the bloody inspiration for Texan freedom. Davy Crockett (of coonskin cap and wild frontier fame) fought and died there along with many others. Here are some pictures of that, too.

The next morning we said goodbye to George and he gave us some helpful tips about Marfa and it's surrounding attractions, which we put to good use when we got there.

And there you have it: our 36 hours in San Antonio. Festive. Picturesque. Enthusiastic.

Up next, let's go get dusty in Marfa.

Random Facts and Statistics from San Antonio:

We had our first tequila shot of the trip here (with plenty more to come in the following week), a gift from Texas Sam.

According to a teenager at the parade, Sam looks like "that guy from Dexter". Compliment? Suuure, why not.

We saw so many Texas flags driving around here that we decided to do a count on our way to Marfa. That statistic to come next post!

categories Exploring
tags Texas, San Antonio, Parade, Riverwalk, Friends

It's so cool, it's awesome

May 15, 2014Samuel Herbig

Our first day in town was a little strenuous, you know with all the walking around and the humid weather. That's why the other Austin "thing" we'd eyed fit in nicely: get outta town and find a swimming hole.

Quick side note for anyone not from the area: the abundance and variety of swimming holes around Austin seem to be a source of some pride in these parts.

There are a few rather well known swimming holes and we didn't really know which one to go to at first. Did we want to go to the most proximate location with Barton Springs and risk it being crowded, or to Jacob's Well but have to endure an hour+ drive? We finally settled on Hamilton Pool, which ended up being roughly an hour away from our Hostel.

We got there, it's $15 (ouch!) and I had to squeeze the Omimobile next to a truck to get a spot in some damn shade!

Change, pee, sun-sreen, ray bans, ready!

It was a short and not too steep hike from the parking lot to the pool. Even before we got to the pool you could already hear the hollering and laughter of the people there. If you've ever been to an indoor pool, you know that echoey sound, right? It was surreal, because we were standing under these big trees with a little creek running to our left, birds chirping overhead and yet my ears were telling me: "attention please! no diving from the edge of the pool and keep your eyes closed under water, cuz of the chlorine."

Thirty steps on and after crossing the creek, we stepped out from under the trees and there it was: a big round pool of dark blue water, about fifty yards across. On our side was a tiny little beach with people sunbathing and chatting.

Half of the pool is tucked underneath a massive cliff overhang that is in the shape of a semi circle. The water feeding the pool drips in from a number of small waterfalls over the edge of this cliff into the pool.

I didn't even notice the people around us. I was transfixed by how incredible of a sight the whole thing was. This is the kind of thing water parks try to recreate, and here we were with the real deal right in front of us. Even better, there was no staff telling us what was allowed and prohibited. We were here with all the other swimmers and sunbathers enjoying this gift of nature. And that's what it really was: a gift of nature to me, to Whitney, to all the people that were there and all the people that are yet to come.

Views: Hamilton Creek, Texas by Samuel Herbig

See, if you thought the post title was silly you were so wrong! This thing was both awesome and cool (made sure I didn't give Whitney the satisfaction of squealing when I got in the water this time though). But I mean come on, that is freaking cool as anything this place, right? You get to swim under a natural waterfall, in a fresh water pool half in a cave half out of it.

There were lots of other things to observe around the pool, as well. Above us, swallows were feeding their offspring in nests that were attached to the cliff ceiling. After a quick swim across the pool we found that one of the waterfall's water, splashing raining down from above onto a moss covered rock was a good 10-15° warmer than the rest of the pool. It was like a massage and a hot shower rolled into one. Around the pool there were various fish and turtles. I'm not into fishing (no idea if it's allowed down there), but I'm pretty sure even I could've caught something there.

I think all in all we spent about three hours there. We packed up our stuff and made our way back to the car to free up our parking spot for any of the other people now waiting in line for their chance in the cool waters of the pool.

Blissful, we headed back to town to pick up a snack and to extend our food truck series at Burro's (grilled cheese).

Then we got ice cream over at the Cow Tipping Creamery (told you that was still going to happen, didn't I?).

Whitney's been kind of the champion of going on tours. She's pointed out that even if they can be lame or boring there is hardly a better way to learn about a particular areas history quickly, without going on one. Browsing through the weekly events thread over on /r/austin I saw that someone had mentioned a "Moonlight Prowl" of the University of Texas campus and that it was organized by a guy as sort of a passion project. That sounded good to me since I didn't feel like the rest of Austin had all that much history to offer and I'm always game for anecdotal history of pretty much any place.

For example, did you know that the campus of UT was plagued by roaming cows, who even figured out how to get through a turnstile erected specifically to keep them out?

Taken from Phil Cohen's website of old postcards

Or that the clock and tower of the main building closely resemble the city hall building in Camden, NJ? There may be some architectural plagiarism going on there.

I just blew your mind, admit it!

It was an entertaining tour to be sure and I think we both had a good time (right Whitney? "yeah, it was fun, it was cute!").

We finished the day out by meeting an old friend from New York, Matt, and his friend at Liberty bar. Yo Matt, thanks for coming out and thanks for not taking us to Library bar, right?

So in retrospect, today went really, really well!

categories Exploring
tags University of Texas, Tour, Austin, Hamilton Pool, Swimming, Food Truck

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