April 27-30, 2017: Guy Visits Us in Dallas
	March 19-16, 2017: Guy Visits Us in Fort Lauderdale
	Return to the Index for 2017

On Thursday, March 30, Fred and I headed down to San Antonio, accepting an invitation to come visit Prudence, Ron and Guy for the weekend. Since Karl and Nancy would also be there, it should be a nice visit.

Getting to the Ruckman's House in San Antonio

You have probably seen an album page where we visit San Antonio, but in case you haven't, I want to show you the route to San Antonio from Dallas and where Prudence and Ron and Guy are located.

On the maps below, you can see the route to the Ruckmans' house. It is an easy matter to simply hop on I-35E from the Tollway in Dallas and take that highway all the way south through Austin to San Antonio. This 280-mile trip routinely takes about 4.5 hours. In San Antonio, we continue to follow I-35 into the city, eventually exiting onto San Pedro Avenue. We take that north about two miles, and either hang a left on Ashby and a right on Breeden or just a left on French to get to the Ruckmans' house on the northeast corner of Breeden and French.

In case you have not seen them, I have put below first an aerial view of the Ruckmans' house (it is the house on the corner and the garage/apartment building north of it where Guy lives) and a front view of the house (taken in 2010).

We did the usual things during our visit- stuff around the house, eating out, eating in, visiting with Nancy and Karl- but Fred, Guy, Prudence, and I also made a trip to the San Antonio Botanical Garden. One afternoon we all also went to see the Our Lady of Atonement Catholic Church- supposedly one of the prettiest and most historic Catholic churches in town.

A Visit to the San Antonio Botanical Garden

On one morning during our visit, Guy, Fred, Prudence and I made a trip over to the San Antonio Botanical Garden. It was a pretty day, and a nice one to be in the gardens.

Prior to 1877, the eastern end of Mahncke Park was a limestone quarry that at one time became part of a reservoir system for San Antonio. When the city began using wells instead of surface water, the owner deeded the land to the city (1899). The idea of a Botanical Garden for San Antonio dates to the 1940s. A group of supporters developed and presented a master plan for a public botanical garden in the late 1960s, and the old quarry site was chosen.

In 1970, voters approved $265,000 in bonds for the Garden. This money, along with a grant awarded five years later by the Ewing Halsell Foundation, other contributions from organizations and individuals, and a significant grant from the Economic Development Administration helped pay for the project. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held on July 21, 1976. The official opening of the San Antonio Botanical Garden was May 3, 1980.

One of the first things Guy did when he moved to San Antonio in July was to get a membership at the Botanical Garden so he can come here frequently and walk. Apparently, he does this at least a couple of times a week. If I lived nearer to the Dallas Arboretum, I'd probably go more frequently as well.

We have all been to the Botanical Garden before, and we found out some time ago that our memberships to the Dallas Arboretum would get us free admission to the San Antonio gardens (as well as fifty other gardens around the country) on a reciprocal arrangement among botanical gardens and arboretums.

Getting to the gardens is just a fifteen-minute trip from Ruckman Haus, and I knew the way quite well. I didn't put a distance scale on the map at right, but the whole trip is a little less than three miles.

I think there are a number of reasons why Guy comes to the gardens frequently. They, like the Dallas Arboretum, are not only a delight to the eyes, but provide rest for the soul as well. That rest is something Guy treasures, and something we should all get more of.

We were actually here as recently as last Fall; today we just came to stroll through the gardens, not following any particular route. There were some sculpture pieces on display in the gardens (part of the Art in the Garden exhibition), and you will see some of them in the pictures we took.

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We didn't walk through the entire garden today, so I've eschewed showing you a garden map and marking our route on it. Other than pictures of the flowers and plants now blooming, we only took a few other pictures- like this one of Guy at the East Texas House and one of some folks taking wedding pictures in the wisteria arbor.

Art in the Garden

There was a sculpture exhibition in the garden, but we only saw one of the; it is at right.

For the rest of today's Botanical Garden pictures, I've chosen to put them in a slide show, so that you can go through them rapidly if you want to have a look.

That slideshow is at left. To move through the pictures, just use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image. There are 31 images in this show, and you can track your progress by referring to the index numbers in the upper left.

As usual, our visit to the Botanical Garden was very enjoyable- particularly since so many things were in bloom.

Rainbow Gardens

Prudence is beginning work on her gardens for spring, and on one afternoon we went to a nursery/garden center that we had not been to before- Rainbow Gardens up off 1604 in North San Antonio. It was a typical, but interesting garden shop, and I ended up taking a few pictures while we were there.

At the Entrance to Rainbow Gardens

Bedding Plants at Rainbow Gardens

Fred is always intrigued by kinetic sculptures, and has been on the lookout for one that he could put in front of his house. He found some here, but in the end thought that they would be too easy for someone to just pick up and cart off. I thought they were interesting though, and took the picture at left and made the movie below to show you what they were like:

Kinetic Sculptures at Rainbow Gardens (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

There were a number of sculptures here at the garden center, ranging from (to use an oft-repeated phrase) the sublime all the way to the patently ridiculous. Rainbow gardens was an interesting place, but I doubt Prudence will return here very often as "Shades of Green", a garden shop she has used for years, is much closer to her.

Those are our pictures for this trip. Yet again, we were very appreciative of Prudence's hospitality in allowing us to stay with her! You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	April 27-30, 2017: Guy Visits Us in Dallas
	March 19-16, 2017: Guy Visits Us in Fort Lauderdale
	Return to the Index for 2017