Humidity Saps Our Strength - Sunday, July 26, 2015

Bob was out the door before me to run with his marathon training group. He said he was going to do 2-3 miles with them, then he might meet up with Susan and I to walk with us on the River Walk.



Susan and I met at 7 a.m. at El Tropicano Hotel in San Antonio where the Volksmarch start box is located for the Museum Reach of the River Walk. We signed in and took off walking.

Juvenile yellow-crowned night heron

“Puente de Rippling Shadows,”
or “Bridge of Rippling Shadows,” by Rolando Briseño

Susan wanted to check out the Wyndham Garden Hotel because a Volkssport group will hold a meeting there in August. They will do the walk we're doing today, only starting from this hotel. The Wyndham Garden Hotel is very pretty.

Lobby at Wyndham Garden Hotel

Bourbon Street Seafood Kitchen at Wyndham

From the Wyndham Garden Hotel, we took the steps down to the River Walk and continued past beautiful ponds and the San Antonio River. The flowers along the way were fantastic today.

Water lilies

Bee attracted to a water lily

Flowers framing falls at The Pearl

Bat-face cuphea (Cuphea llavea)
Look closely to see the bat face!

Hibiscus

Hibiscus

San Antonio River at The Pearl

The Pearl

We walked past The Pearl which used to be a brewery, but has been re-purposed into shops, restaurants and the Hotel Emma. Bob called at this point to find out where we could meet up. We decided to meet just north of The Pearl at the intake where excess San Antonio River water goes into a bypass system that keeps San Antonio from flooding when we have lots of rain.

Bob arrived just as we walked up to the area where he parked. The three of us then walked together north to and through Brackenridge Park, then back down Broadway. Bob left us near where he had parked his truck and Susan and I continued back to El Tropicano.

Three killdeer in a drainage ditch

Killdeer

One of the largest events in San Antonio is Fiesta in April. City-wide festivals take place over the course of ten days with music, dancing, food, drink, and entertainment on various stages. The Fiesta store, where you can buy T-shirts, pins, badges, and other souvenirs, is on Broadway.

We also passed by Sam's Burger Joint which Susan swears has the best onion rings, so good in fact, she won't eat onion rings anywhere else. Our walk took us through the Pearl shops and back to the River Walk.

Susan sniffing to find out if the Mexican olive tree
flowers have a scent. (They don't.)

Identifies what the pretty water area at The Pearl is called

Susan on the walkway at Pearl Springs

"The Grotto," by Carlos Cortes

Can you see the skull face? (This is at The Grotto)

The Grotto on Museum Reach of the San Antonio River Walk

San Antonio Museum of Art (housed in an old brewery)

Before I found out the name of the art installation on the McCullough Street Bridge (pictured below), I called it "Hands Across the Water."

“Puente de Encuentros,” or “Bridge of Encounters,”
by Rolando Briseño

When I say the humidity sapped our strength today, I wasn't kidding. We were all sweating and miserably hot. The temperature was probably 90 degrees but with the humidity, it felt like 100. We couldn't wait to get back into our air-conditioned cars.

Susan and I had planned to go to breakfast at the Guenther House, but our movie started at 10:30 a.m. and we didn't have time. So it was straight to the theater for us. We saw "Trainwreck."

After the movie, lunch was at 54th Street Bar & Grille just across the parking lot from the theater. By the time the movie was over, we were very hungry. I had a wonderful salad. After lunch we each headed home.

It was a great day of exercise, movie and a good meal. Just too hot to be walking.

Lego® Art: Some Assembly Required - Mon., Sep. 8

About 9 a.m., after being stuck in a traffic jam on I-37, I met Susan at the San Antonio Botanic Garden where we are both members. The reason for our visit? An art installation of Lego® block sculptures by one of 14 Lego® Certified Professionals worldwide. The art exhibit is titled: Nature Connects. The show will be at the San Antonio Botanic Garden until Jan. 4, 2015.

About the sculptures:
The 27 sculptures on display in the Nature Connects Exhibit were built from nearly half a million Lego® bricks. The artist, Sean Kenney, used only basic rectangular and flat Lego® bricks in readily available colors.

The mother bison took the most bricks to create, exactly 45,143. The tallest sculptures are "The Rose" and the "Hummingbird and Flower," which are both more than 6' tall.

The larger works have an internal structure of steel rods and plates to provide support and balance. It took Sean eight months to create all the sculptures.

The artist, Sean Kenney, spent so much time playing with Lego® bricks growing up, he decided he might as well make a career out of it. He has been turning Lego® bricks into incredible works of art for almost a decade. A recent magazine article described Sean's life as a "never-ending block party." (Great pun!)

You might be interested in some Lego® factoids posted on a sign in the garden:

• The Lego® group is a privately held company based in Denmark. It was founded in 1932.
• The word Lego® is a combination of the Danish words Leg Godt, which means "play well."
• The classic Lego® brick was patented in 1958 [when I was six years old!].
• Nearly 600 billion Lego® elements have been manufactued.
• The Lego® brick was declared the "Toy of the Century" by Fortune Magazine in 1999.
• Lego® bricks are available in more than 50 colors.
• The Lego® bricks sold in one year would circle the world five times.

Susan and I had a blast. We loved all the colorful sculptures and their placement in natural settings. For example, the Goldfinches installation blended right into the Formal and Display Gardens. In fact, we had to look for it! See for yourselves. Even the "bird food" is made of Legos®.

Goldfinches Lego® exhibit (575 pieces each)

Goldfinches

Because we arrived at 9 a.m. when the garden opened, it wasn't too hot and there were very few people around. We spent about 1-1/2 hours exploring the garden grounds searching out the sculptures. (We did have a map to help us.)

Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly by Sean Kenney (37,481 pieces)

Hummingbird and Flower

Hanging out with the big chairs.

Susan M. found her happy place.

The following two photos are NOT Lego® bricks, they are dead trees painted in bright colors. Susan is talking to one of the botanic garden workers asking if they are going to make the colorful trees a permanent display.

Susan with botanic garden worker

Reminds me of some colorful trees we saw in Sacramento, CA.

Lego® rose in the Rose Garden (41,242 pieces)

Very realistic-looking Lego® lawn mower! (13,704 pieces)

Germinating acorn under an oak tree.
(15,581 pieces)

Pretty fountains

More over-sized art chairs (not Lego®)

Real orchids.

Koi Lego® art (1,937 pieces) on display in a pond

Water platter [lily pad] and koi Lego® art in pond.
(Water platter: 10,598 pieces; frog: 530 pieces)

Lego® bee hanging from rafters

Lego® bee

Real cactus flower and buzzing bee

Lego® Common Green Darner Dragonfly in the lake.
(6,535 pieces)

Lego® Gardener in the garden. (37,497 pieces)

Lego® Fox and Rabbit

Lego® Bison and Calf in the "prairie."

Lego® bird on back of bison

Lego® Bison and Calf (another view)

In addition to the Lego® sculptures, here are flowers in bloom...

Amaryllis?

Passion flower

Datura candida

HUGE hibiscus

Datura metel

And that was our morning. We enjoyed our walk with Lego® art.

After we parted ways, I headed to Walmart to do some shopping. Then it was off to Costco where I stocked up on salad fixings, almond milk and ground turkey. Back at the 5er, I made a huge pot of spaghetti and a big green salad. We had a very good dinner tonight.

Travel Bug out.