San Antonio, TX

Saturday, June 28th

San Antonio was the perfect place to rejoin the tour. I had a blast there. The hotel was lovely. The theatre was just the sort that I enjoy - a room with lots of history and charm. The city was walkable and there was a great variety of things to see and do.

I arrived in San Antonio Monday evening. As soon as I stepped outside, the heat took my breath away. Every day the temperature went up near or above a hundred degrees. I checked into my hotel - the Saint Anthony. The Saint Anthony opened in 1909 and remains a very charming hotel today. My room was tiny, but I fell in love with it immediately. It featured a big four poster bed that I nearly needed a step stool to climb into and great old finishes all around. Just as I enjoy a theatre with history and charm, I liked my room because it had character.

My little room and great big bed

TVFMHRW San Antonio - forget that, look at the bed instead

I hit the River Walk on Monday night and after I wandered around for a bit, I came across team Wardrobe dining riverside at Boudro's. Boudro's bills itself as a Texas bistro. The menu features seafood from the Gulf, Texas beef and quail, lots of Mexican influences and even some barbecue. We all enjoyed some prickly pear margaritas and a great meal al fresco. Tuesday's load-in lunch with team Spam-a-management and a between shows meal on Sunday with Jeff and Roy were also shared at Boudro's.

Wednesday Angela and her sister (who's a transplanted Texan) took me to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. It's a drive through safari at the edge of Texas Hill Country. The ranch is home to a mix of creatures from all over the world. Bison share pastureland with long horn cattle, giraffes, rhinos, camels, emu and wildebeest. Angela had been to the ranch before and was focused on luring zebras to our car; we snuck in bags of carrots to supplement the kibble the ranch provided. At first, none of the animals were very interested in our carrots or our kibble, but we quickly made friends with a deer. As soon as he tasted the carrots, he wouldn't leave us alone - he even chased our car for a while! A long horn also really got into our carrots and started to frighten us a bit, what with his enormous horns, as he kept coming back for more. All of this was small potatoes, though, in comparison to the attention we got from the zebras. We stopped traffic in the park while the zebras swarmed around us. They were the most friendly / aggressive animals in the park. They wanted the kibble from everyone, but were crazy for the carrots. The more dominant animals would chase away the others and reach their heads right into the car to get at the carrots. It was a riot!

Angela's sister get up close and personal with a zebra

Angela looked like this a lot


They even fed this CREEPY OSTRICH THROUGH THE SUNROOF!!!

On our way back into town, Angela treated us to a Mexican joint that became a favorite of hers while she was in town with The Lion King. Cachito de Mexico was delicious - the first of many delicious Mexican meals I was to enjoy in San Antonio. After lunch, we visited El Mercado, the old market square in downtown San Antonio. It's home to all sorts of vendors, many of whom have Mexican and Mexican-inspired crafts on offer. We wandered for the rest of the afternoon collecting treasures. We wrapped up the afternoon with Mexican pastries and headed home for a siesta.

Between understudy rehearsal on Thursday and that evening's performance Karl, Francesca, Ken and I went out for dinner at Mi Tierra Cafe. Mi Tierra is a local institution in El Mercado. Since it has such an authentic feel and devoted following, I decided to try something new. I ordered a bowl of menudo, the Mexican tripe soup (not the boy band). The broth, hominy and accompanying peppers, onions and cilantro were delicious. The stewed offal: not so much. I'm glad I tried something new, but I won't be ordering menudo again any time soon.

Menudo


Ken models one of the hats in El Mercado

Friday morning I took a Segway Tour of town. Vera and I signed up for a tour given on the wacky Segway Personal Transporters. There was a brief class before the tour began on how to ride the Segway and then we were off whizzing about town while standing up! It was surprising how intuitive the controls were and how quickly everyone got the hang of the machines. With a top speed of 12 miles per hour, we were able to see a lot in a short amount of time. We followed the River Walk to its end as well as visiting the King William neighborhood (the old German-town), Hemisfair Park (home of the 1968 World's Fair), La Villita (an arts and craft village in one of the oldest parts of town), the Cathedral of San Fernando as well as the Alamo. After our motorized tour, we walked through the Alamo. The building that comes to mind when I think of the Alamo is only a small part of the mission turned fort that was involved in the famous battle. All that remains of the complex of buildings known, in 1836, as the Alamo is the church building and part of the barracks. It's called "the Shrine of Texas Liberty" and there are signs requesting a respectful silence, but much like the monuments in Washington DC, the Alamo is packed with all kinds of tourists and doesn't feel as respectful as its place in history warrants. I'm not a great fan of Texas lore and legend (my New York pride won't let me enjoy Texans' bombast), but the story of the Alamo - 187 men holding off and army of thousands for 11 days before finally being overrun - is amazing.

Vera and I on our Segways outside the Cathedral


Outside the Alamo

After my siesta, Karl, David and I set out to experience "the worst bar-b-q in Texas" at Rudy's. Karl's brother and his family live in San Antonio and had taken Karl out to Rudy's when Karl visited last summer. He filed away Rudy's and promised to take me there. It was barbecue heaven. We had a feast of turkey, brisket, sausage, pork ribs and chopped barbecue (some of everything chopped fine and stewing in sauce). It was all delicious. None of us had room for the peach cobbler, but we couldn't leave it behind: we shared it at intermission!

David and Karl outside Rudy's

Saturday morning, Roy and I took a boat tour of the River Walk area. The tour was super-cheesy, but really fun. We were loaded onto a pontoon and ferried around the San Antonio River by a guide as full of jokes as he was facts: "There's plenty of native wildlife in the river: ducks, egrets, fish and tourists." The River Walk (or Paseo del Rio) was dreamed up in the 1920's as an alternative to paving over the river. Set one story below the street, the 17,000 feet of original walkway were built by the WPA during the Great Depression. Since then, the River Walk has continued to grow and is the second busiest tourist attraction in Texas (behind the Alamo).

The River Walk from above

With Patrick away on his leave, our swings had a busy week. On Saturday, we ran out of male swings and were facing a cut-down version of the show, but Tera-Lee jumped into one of the boys' tracks! Roy worked some costume magic and fit her into Graham's clothes. They ace bandaged her chest and she went on as the littlest of the men. The whole company had a great time performing with her/him and watching from the wings. Rarely does the whole company sit and watch all the scenes that they're not in, but whenever Tera-Lee was on, everybody was watching. I worked the deck for the first of her two shows and snapped a few pictures:

TL and the boys in Camelot


TL and Nigel in Rio

Too soon, the trucks were waiting on College Street behind the theatre and it was time to pack up the circus. Monday morning the bus was waiting at the curb to take us on to Fort Worth. I could have spent a lot more time in San Antonio, but it was time to press on and bang out the last of the 22 one-weekers.

An album of my photos from San Antonio is here.

JV