Type A Kinda Day - Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016

My best friend and walking buddy, Susan Medlin, has been gallivanting around the country on walking weekends and going to Volksmarch events -- Walk Around Florida, Big Bend Hiking Weekend, walks in New Mexico -- and I am jealous! 

She finally came home last weekend and wanted to walk (to map out) a half marathon route in San Antonio for the International Marching League (IML) for February 2017. The IML is a cousin to the American Volkssport Association. However, the IML walks are longer than Volksmarches, usually 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) and marathon-length (26.2 miles) routes. 

We agreed to meet at 8:10 am at Mission Espada. We left our car there and Susan drove us to our starting point at the Holiday Inn in downtown San Antonio. Another Volksmarching friend, Pat Heller, met us at the motel. 

Note: I have to give big kudos to Bob for walking with us today. He did the whole 13.1 miles, and this after running a 20-mile marathon-training run yesterday! Way to go, Bob!

Since we were officially measuring the route, Susan got out the wheel that measures kilometers which she set to zero, then we started walking. The weather had cooled off considerably from our previous 80+-degree days and we had a pleasant walking temperature.  

Our starting point

We spent the first half mile on Cesar Chavez Blvd. before we took stairs down to the River Walk south of downtown.  Sites we saw along the way included the former home of the United States Arsenal at San Antonio and the Arsenal Magazine. The Arsenal was deactivated in 1947. In 1983, H-E-B grocery made it their corporate headquarters.

United States Arsenal at San Antonio

Continuing south on the River Walk in the King William Historic District, we had a beautiful reflection of the Pioneer Flour Mills tower.
 

Pioneer Flour Mills and Guenther House

All along the River Walk are signs directing you to points of interest. We were headed toward the Blue Star Arts Complex and the missions. 
 

The River Walk supports all types of birds, fish and wildlife. Sometimes you get see a slice of nature and the food chain at work. Today Pat noticed this Great Blue Heron catch a fish. Look at the size of that fish (tilapia?)! Good catch, Pat, and Mr. Heron.

Great Blue Heron with its breakfast

Just south of the Blue Star Arts Complex are a whole lot of new apartments in an area that is being called Southtown. These historic silos have been left in place at The Flats at Big Tex.
 

The Flats at Big Tex

A unique attribute of San Antonio, Texas, is its water diversion system. A large diversion tunnel outflow is here south of downtown. If San Antonio receives a lot of rain all at once the water is diverted around downtown to keep downtown from flooding. The water is released from the tunnel to continue flowing freely at this outflow facility. If you come to this outflow facility after a very heavy rainfall event, you will see water gushing out of all the gates. It is very dramatic!

Diversion tunnel outflow - no rainfall recently

As we passed the diversion tunnel, we started seeing runners with race numbers. We found out they are doing a Veterans 5k race today. Here's one of the racers dressed as a Centurion.
 

Veterans 5k racer

At 6k, we came to Mission Concepcion, one of five missions in San Antonio that are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. A checkpoint for the IML half-marathon walk would be put here.

Our walk continued on city streets for about 1/2 mile, when we went back down onto the Mission Reach of the River Walk. At 8.5k we came to Travelers World and I dropped out of the walk to go home, clean house, and make chili for our dinner guests, Mike and Sandy Mills. 

Bob, Susan Medlin and Pat continued on to finish the 13.1 miles at Mission Espada. Bob rescued our car and did some grocery shopping on his way home. 

At 5:30 Mike and Sandy came over. Mike and I had planned for all of us to "get together." In my mind, I had invited them over for dinner, but when they arrived and were perplexed that I had cooked, I realized I hadn't really said "come over for dinner."

Anyway, we had a lovely evening getting to know each other better. We had only met before at an RV-Dreams Rally in Kerrville, Texas in 2012. In the intervening years Mike and I followed each other's blogs. Bob and I were happy to see their Bluebonnet Rally Group was visiting our park. The main reason I knew they were here was that we are both members of RVillage and we saw that they had checked in at Travelers World. 

Mike and Sandy took a tour of our 5th wheel and met our kitties, Bowie and Sunnie. The kitties took a liking to them and hung out in the living room with us.

For dinner, we had turkey chili with sides of grated cheese and diced onions, jalapeno cornbread and a green salad. After dinner we introduced them to the game Qwirkle. It had been a while since we played, so we had to re-read the rules. We played two games and it got very quiet in here as our neurons fired and our brains puzzled over the best moves to make in the game. Sandy won the first round and I won the second round. It was lots of fun and we decided one of us needed a puppy. (You had to be there to understand that joke.)

Anyway, we decided we should get together again while they're here. We're looking forward to it.  

Happy and satisfied with a sense of accomplishment...Type A Travel Bug out.