Work, the North Riverwalk, and Super Bowl Party - Wed., Jan. 29 - Sun., Feb. 1

Wednesday through Saturday, I worked at the RV Park my usual four, ten-hour days. We are busy! Besides Winter Texans (the rest of the nation calls them snowbirds), we had an FQCC rally with 21 rigs come in Saturday for three nights.

Super Bowl Sunday, Susan, Darren, Bob and I did the River Walk North Volksmarch which starts at El Tropicano Hotel and follows the San Antonio River north past the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA), and the Pearl Brewery District, all the way to Brackenridge Park. This is one of my favorite walks in San Antonio. Here's why: all along the north River Walk are art installations - on the bridges, under the bridges, along the trail - each installation has a plaque describing the art and artist. Plus, the landscaping is mature with flowers, trees shrubs...it seems no matter what time of year we walk this, something is blooming.

The fog was thick when we headed out which made for moodier photos.

New mural on El Tropicano Hotel

No getting lost on the River Walk

The  oldest VFW post in Texas is in San Antonio

The photo below is taken behind the San Antonio Museum of Art along the River Walk. I love how the fog makes the trees look otherworldly above the river, but the reflections in the river are so clear.

At the old Pearl Brewery, a renaissance is in progress. The brewery is being converted into the upscale Hotel Emma. Not sure when it's slated to open. In addition to the hotel, new restaurants and shops are already open.

Black-bellied whistling ducks

Brackenridge Golf Course in the fog.

Foggy Brackenridge Golf Course

Sharp-shinned hawk hunting over the river

New Boiler House Restaurant at The Pearl

Here are Darren, Bob and Susan in front of the recently opened Nao Restaurant at The Pearl.

Darren, Bob, Susan M.

Cool entry door at Nao

The new Hotel Emma is huge!

 These fish swim in the air "currents" under an interstate bridge.

Fish art (at night, they're illuminated)

Below is one of the River Taxis on the San Antonio River. It is passing in front of one of the new buildings on the Museum Reach of the River Walk.

Rio River Taxi

In 2014 the new Tobin Center for the Performing Arts opened downtown. Now concerts, plays, ballets and other cultural events take place here every weekend.

Completed river side of Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.

Tobin Center under construction on Sept. 2, 2014

Tobin Center on Sept. 2, 2014

Tobin Center as seen from the side 9-2-14.

Now here's a surprise! As we were driving into town, we passed Travis Park. It looked like there were a lot of painted Easter bunnies in the center of the park. I told Bob as we were driving past that I wanted to stop for photos on the way home. He obliged. There was no street parking as the churches had services on Sunday morning. Bob dropped me off so I could figure out what we were looking at. He drove around the block many times while I snapped photos.

Turns out the "Easter bunnies" were not Easter bunnies after all. They were art pieces from Monterrey, Mexico on loan to San Antonio. The show is called Mano Factura: Arte Regio. As you can see they are quite unique and definitely not rabbits.

Travis Park with Mano Factura art

Bob was a good sport and just kept driving around the block for me. We kept an eye on each other so I knew where he was when it was time for me to hop in the car.

We went home and relaxed until almost Super Bowl time. Susan and Darren invited us to their home for the party. We brought the pizza and some gourmet cupcakes. Susan made Caesar salad, piroshki's with ground beef filling, olive spread, spinach dip, and provided a veggie tray, fruit tray, chips, ice cream sundae bar with four kinds of ice cream, toppings, and whipped cream. Lynn brought homemade peach cobbler. Darren made a refreshing punch with pineapple juice, orange juice, and ginger ale. We ate like kings.

Too bad the game wasn't as good as the food. We're Seahawks fans and the Hawks sucked. At least we had good camaraderie and enjoyed watching (most of) the commercials.

Susan recently took up making stained glass windows. They converted a room of their house to her stained glass studio. The carpet was ripped out and they installed new flooring. Here is Susan in her new studio with one of her projects.

Susan in her studio

Susan & Darren's remodeled room (new flooring)

Now you are up to date for last week. We had a terrific time.

Travel Bug out.

Another Gift Exchange? - Tues., December 16, 2014

After our Sunday cookie exchange fun day, I worked for Snelling staffing as a temp office assistant on Monday, December 15, for an insurance company in north central San Antonio.

At noon on Tuesday I had my hair trimmed. Tuesday evening, River City Seafood and Grill in north central San Antonio was the location of our Randolph Roadrunners Volksmarch Club Christmas Dinner and Gift Exchange. Bob and I had a meeting with our financial adviser at 3:30 p.m. and decided to go directly to the restaurant afterward. One never knows what kind of traffic may be encountered around rush hour in San Antonio.

Our drive was slow for a short way, then flowed freely. We arrived at the restaurant an hour early. The banquet room was set up and ready for our group, so they turned on the lights and let us in. We had our own private waiter for almost 45 minutes. Bob brought in his Michael Connelly novel to read while I drank two glasses of wine and had a shrimp cocktail. (I hadn't had lunch and was quite hungry!) By the time the club members started arriving, I was feeling pretty good.

We had 30 people present at dinner. It was not catered, we ordered off the menu. I had a strawberry, pecan, feta cheese salad with grilled chicken. Yummy. Our dinner service staff was exceptional.

My friend, Susan M., with her wreath halo. LOL.

Susan M. and her son, Travis.

Travis listening attentively

Susan M. and Travis

Gift exchanges are fun to observe. Gifts were to be around $10 and we could wrap them as prettily as we wanted. I guess I was still on the brown paper bag band wagon from the RV park gift exchange. I wrapped one gift in a brown gift bag, stuffed the bag with three colors of tissue and tied the handles with dark brown raffia. That was the bottle of chocolate covered almonds. The other gift was wrapped in blue and white dove Christmas paper and had a bunch of shimmering blue, silver and white curled ribbons tied on it. That was the book "Unbroken."

Our gift exchange numbers were in a treat bag we had been given when we arrived. "No looking in the bags until we tell you," the organizers instructed.

When the time came, we opened our treat bags so we could start the gift exchange. No one had #1, so I started with #2. That meant at the end I could steal someone else's gift if it hadn't already been stolen twice before. I don't remember what my gift was - something I didn't want or need. Bob had #3 so he went right after me. His gift was a Ghiradelli hot chocolate gift bag complete with mini marshmallows and chocolate stirring spoon. Yum!

Below is our American Volkssport Association (AVA) Southwest Regional Director, Joanne Forinash. Her gift is so perfect. It's a turquoise and silver charm necklace with hiking boots, a walking stick, AVA letters, and a roadrunner (for the Randolph Roadrunners club). The necklace was made by Susan Ives, one of our club members. Everyone loved it (and wanted one, I think).

Speaking of Susan Ives, she offered to assist me with Publicity duties for the Randolph Roadrunners Volksmarch Club which is perfect. She specializes in radio and TV media, I specialize in print and online media.  Woo hoo. Thank you, Susan. (And, yes, there were three Susans sitting near each other at this party.)

Joanne Forinash, SW Regional Director for AVA

By the end of the evening, I was chomping at the bit to steal someone else's gift. My first choice would have been the movie gift card, but someone stole it for the second time almost at the end. My second choice would have been the necklace, but it was too perfect for Joanne and a good gift for all the hard work she puts in at AVA.

Bob got to keep the hot chocolate gift bag. I chose an insulated lunch bag that looks more like a purse. A big insulated pocket is for your lunch fixins and another big pocket is for other purse stuff. Plus there's an exterior smart phone holder with a snap hold down and a zippered outside pocket. It came with a plastic lunch container that has a part you can freeze to keep it cold in the insulated compartment. There's even a smaller plastic container that will be perfect for a serving of salad dressing. I love it and use it for lunch when I'm working.

Insulated lunch bag/purse on left, my current purse on right.

After a lovely evening, we all made our way back to our cozy abodes.

Travel Bug out.

Hannibal Pianta Lecture - Tues., Aug. 19, 2014

Tuesday evening Bob and I joined Susan and other members of the Randolph Roadrunners Volksmarch Club at the Universal City Library for a lecture by Paul Kahl, Jr. about Hannibal Pianta, a master modeler/architectural sculptor. The Volksmarch Club provided a dinner of meats, cheese, rolls, chips, fruit, potato salad and a variety of desserts, including Susan's blueberry crisp, which was warm from the oven.

Charlotte Kahl, Paul's mother, is chair of the Old Spanish Trail 100 group. Hannibal Pianta's ornamental cast stone work, and his father, John's, plaster work grace many historic buildings along the Old Spanish Trail. John Pianta was an immigrant from Italy who was already working in Texas. John worked as chief plasterer on the Texas State Capitol in Austin, and the Georgia State Capitol.

When Hannibal immigrated from Italy in 1905, he set up shop with his father who was already producing plaster ornamental capitals (decorative work at the top of a column). The significance of the cast stone ornamentation, as opposed to chiseled stone, is the rapidity with which building ornamentation can be created. Forms are used for the wet "cement" mixture to set up. Once dry, the cement ornamental pieces were trucked to building sites and installed. The ornamental "cast stone" used by Hannibal has lasted for almost 100 years with no cracks, crumbling or spalling (chipping or splintering) and feels smooth to the touch.

Paul Kahl and his mother, Charlotte, have been researching Hannibal's architectural art work on old buildings.

Our speaker: Paul Kahl, Jr.

Hannibal Pianta working on a large cartouche.

Much of the photography showing Hannibal Pianta's work is copyrighted so I could not include those photos in my blog. However, Paul Kahl, Jr. is an accomplished artist who has painstakingly recreated some of those old photographs in free-hand drawings. Paul gave me permission to publish photos of his artwork. You can see how beautiful ornamental cast stone work can be. [Caption in lower right or drawing below says: "Paul Kahl, Jr., Dec. 4, 2011, from photograph of work by Hannibal Pianta, ca. 1920's."]

Cast stone art work depicted in a drawing
by Paul Kahl, Jr.

Another drawing by Paul Kahl, Jr.

Here is another piece of cast stone by Hannibal Pianta:

In 2011, Charolotte created an architectural tour highlighting the work of Hannibal Pianta.

Below is a map of the architectural tour locations in San Antonio, and a photo of St. Gerard Catholic Church in Iowa, which has ornamentation by Hannibal.

Map of architectural tour in San Antonio,
and St. Gerard's Church in Iowa

Other cast stone ornamentation work done by Hannibal is prevalent on Thomas Jefferson High School, McNay Art Museum, Our Lady of the Lake Chapel, St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Municipal Auditorium (now the facade for the new performing arts center), Central Trust Co. (now a Hilton), Cottonwood Building, the Aztec Theater and the Empire Theater, all in San Antonio, Texas.

Unfortunately Hannibal died at the age of 63 when the truck he was driving to a job site was hit by a train. Two employees jumped free of the truck, but witnesses said Hannibal did not try to jump out.

All of us at the lecture raptly listened to Paul talk about Hannibal Pianta. He was a true artist when it came to working with cast stone.

Thank you so much to Paul and Charlotte Kahl for the information provided on Hannibal and John Pianta. We enjoyed the talk. (And I loved Paul's artwork!)

We also appreciated the dinner sponsored by the Randolph Roadrunners Volksmarch Club.

Update on Bob - Tues., Aug. 19

Today is the day of Bob's cardioversion. We arrived at the hospital at 7:00 a.m. They took him back to the Catheterization Lab to prep him for his cardioversion. A few minutes later, the nurse came out to take me back to see Bob.

He was in normal sinus rhythm so they didn't have to cardiovert him. Yay!

They did want us to stick around to see Bob's doctor who was supposed to be in at 9:00 a.m. At 10:00 a.m. we were still waiting for the doctor. I had read two Entertainment Weekly magazines and made it half-way through a third. The doctor finally showed up about 10:20 a.m.

He talked to Bob for about 10 minutes, answered Bob's questions and sent us on our way. (We had been there 3-1/2 hours.) The doctor was pretty concerned that Bob's pulse was only 40, but Bob normally has a low pulse. Of course the first thing he wanted to do was put Bob on medication. However, the preferred medication would lower Bob's pulse even more, so that was not an option. The other medication he wanted Bob to use was one Bob had a bad reaction to in the past, so no go there either. Fine with us, we don't like to take medications.

Basically the doctor told Bob to continue his normal, everyday activities including basketball and marathon training. He wants Bob to make an appointment for two months from now (when we get back from our Michigan road trip).

Bob says if anything happens while we're on our trip, he's sure there are cardiologists in Wisconsin and Michigan. He plans to keep on doing what he's doing.

Tonight we're going to the Randolph Roadrunner's Volksmarch Club meeting at the University City Library. Tonight is a special program by Charlotte Kahl (Chair, Old Spanish Trail 100) on Hannibal Pianta, architectural sculptor. Mr. Pianta is responsible for a lot of the cement decorations that grace old buildings in downtown San Antonio and throughout Texas. Tonight we will learn about his art work and how it ties in to the Old Spanish Trail. Our club is serving free pizza, salad and dessert! Looking forward to it. I'll have a full report tomorrow.

I want to give a big shout out to Bob's mom, Louise. A few years ago, she made a "tree" for me to hang my souvenir and Volksmarch pin collection on. It was completely full. I asked her if she could make another one and sure enough last week I got one in the mail. I think I'm going to move all my Volksmarch pins to the new tree. You can see in the photo below how full the tree on the left is. The new one is a clean slate. Thank you, Louise, now I can go back to collecting my souvenir pins and be able to display them. I LOVE these display trees.

Here, too, is a photo of my patches I have earned Volksmarching. There are more somewhere but they're probably in storage in Oregon. (Do you like my high-tech, double-sided tape display?)

Volksmarch club and award patches

Snuggle bugs Sunnie and Bowie.

 Travel Bug out.