Road trip to art-walk in San Antonio

Above: Looking northward to downtown from San Pedro Culture Park pathways

If you follow the ruta of San Pedro Creek, you are on a pilgrimage rooted in the past, destined for the future. As in some ancient legend, a city emerged out of these waters. A city bubbled forth out of this spring-fed stream, running from long before there was anyone here to witness it – or drink from it…. If this creek could speak, in whispers of song, or poetry, it might tell the story of the city that it birthed, brought to the light of history, its most extraordinary, and perhaps unexpected, progeny. Whispers of memories, echoes of song, rhythms of poesy, drumbeats and bugles, punctuated by cannonades – and long intervals of peace.”

A Creek Tells Its Story: The Mythic Narrative of San Pedro Creek,” John Phillip Santos

Our rare quick trips to San Antonio tend to involve friends and family, so exploring the two miles of improvements along San Pedro Creek is taking a while. In December, we walked a small segment of the former degraded ditch that has been transformed into San Pedro Cultural Park.

Rather than repeat the background, here are links to my earlier blogs: first post, 2018; second post, 2024. Below, find images taken along a newer stretch.

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Time to weigh your blog consumption

Above: A peacock on the grounds of Real Alcazar in Seville, Spain

Are you sure you’re feeling okay? On examining the list of the most-read posts during the past twelve months, it hit me what is missing. Food. I think this might be the first time since launching these biannual roundups that not one post about restaurants appears on the list. Perhaps while I’m out plumping up during travels, all my readers are on Ozempic.

It always surprises me how different my list of favorites would be than yours. Your interests remain all over the map, which is good because postcard delivery lags way behind our travels. I have a full album of photos waiting to pop up willy-nilly from Mexico, Italy, Spain, England, France, Turkey and the Netherlands.

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Postcard from San Antonio, Texas: Reclaiming creek as urban asset

Above: “Restoration,” mural by Kathy and Lionel Sosa

Once upon a time, I logged a lot of hours at City Hall, sometimes parking on a surface lot behind it. Behind it meaning on the other side of an unrecognizable creek. An ugly footbridge, hemmed in by chained-link fencing, crossed a narrow trash-filled concrete-walled ditch – San Pedro Creek. A place creepy enough to leave me feeling I should pay an extra dollar or two to park in front of City Hall.

Above: 1889 photograph of San Pedro Springs, Austin History Center via Portal to Texas History

Development and insensitive flood-control projects had destroyed what had once been a healthy spring-fed creek.

Continue reading “Postcard from San Antonio, Texas: Reclaiming creek as urban asset”