Stopped by Lou's house this morning
and picked her up to go walk Miko around the park. According to my
Fitbit, which counts the number of steps I've taken, it was about
3800 steps. I'm thinking that is about a mile walk. Beautiful day –
lots of blue sky and sun.
Lou and Davey had plans to meet some
friends. I had plans to head into San Antonio. I decided to take
Miko with me because my second stop was dog friendly.
First up was the McNay Art Museum.
When I was in San Antonio 10-15 years ago I had visited the McNay and
loved it. Mrs. McNay started collecting art in the early 1900s and
when she died in the fifties, she donated her house and her art
collection. I think the museum started out with 700 art pieces.
They now own 16,000 pieces. The house is a wonderful house – a two
story mansion that is built around a central courtyard that houses a
koi pond surrounded by greenery of all sorts. Since I was at the
museum last they have added on several different wings.
The special exhibit was World War II
photographs. Some of the photographs were ones we all know – the
raising of the American flag over Iwo Jima and that picture of the
sailor kissing the nurse on VJ day. I found the exhibit to be so
very touching – all of these people were so young and to have to go
through all that they did – it seems like every time period has
it's tragic moving moments, but to have so many people go through
this same experience at the same time adds a certain amount of
resoluteness and bitter sweetness.
Here is a picture for Heidi who
loves(as we all do) Georgia O'Keefe
And then there was a picture for Tony
who is a Modigliani fan
I could not stay very long in the
museum because Miko was in the car and I was worried that it would
get too warm for her so I headed outside. Let me tell you about my
car – it is a Ford Focus which according to my service guys has a
manual transmission encased in an automatic transmission. Ok,
whatever. I'm not too sure exactly what that means. When you open
the driver's side door, there is all this clicking as the
transmission adjusts itself. It is fairly subtle – click, click.
Ford did a recall on this transmissionand I brought my car in to get
this transmission fixed. Well, after the museum, I opened my
driver's side door and all of a sudden there is this boom, boom, boom
– the car is shaking – I seriously thought it was going to blow
up or something. I grabbed Miko's leash and got her out of the car
and ran over to the other side of the parking lot. It was probably
30-60 seconds before the shaking stopped. I wasn't too sure what to
do. I have a remote start on the car, so I thought that I would
start the car from across the parking lot ad see if it blew up.
Started the car and it started just the way it was supposed to, no
fireworks. Everything seemed to be working just fine so I put Miko
back in the car and we started driving. When I get back up north, my
first stop will be the Ford dealer who supposedly fixed the
transmission.
On to the Japanese Tea Gardens which
is located right next to the San Antonio zoo. Keep in mind, this is
a Saturday and it is a beautiful day. I think most of San Antonio
thought it would be a great day to go to the zoo. Crowds and crowd –
hardly any parking. After we got situated, Miko and I started
walking through the gardens. They were setting a private event in the
pagoda – I think it might have been a wedding. The koi ponds had
either been emptied or they were very shallow, probably because of
the cold weather that Texas has been having the last few weeks. It
was still a delightful way to spend a warm sunny afternoon.
Pagoda:
Bamboo:
More Garden:
As I was leaving, a young girl named Esther wanted to have her picture taken with Miko. She was downright insistent. She was really pleased that she got her picture taken.
Esther and her mom:
We walked around for a bit and then
headed home where I put the mat out and spent the rest of the
afternoon putzing around and brushing Miko.
Lou called and said they were on the
way home from their friends house. They picked up a pizza and
stopped by to offer me some. I graciously declined (for about five
minutes) and then we ate and drank for the rest of the night.
A lovely day.
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