For those of you who’ve been following for a while, you may be aware that Nicole and I are on the cusp of our 6th wedding anniversary. It falls on a Saturday, so we decided to take the week a little vacation the week leading up to it. I’m sure there are traditional gifts for the 6th anniversary, but we decided to just agree that our gifts would be “doing things and making memories together” instead.
It’s worked out pretty well.
The big adventure consisted of spending a couple of nights at our favorite hotel in San Antonio, doing some silly touristy things, and then going out to Lost Maples for an afternoon of blue sky, clean air and, as it turned out, moderate-to-difficult hiking.
The Havana is our lodging of choice. It’s not the newest, the fanciest, or the most well-appointed, but it’s incredibly comfortable. It has big rooms, dark wood floors, super comfortable beds, and a vibe that brings it all together. We try to make sure we stay multiple nights so we can just unpack and chill and live there a little. It’s just north of the Riverwalk area, so it’s accessible, but it’s in a low-traffic area so you get a little privacy.
Nicole had never been to one of those rotating tower restaurants, so we knocked that one off the bucket list. The restaurant at the Tower of the Americas is a fancy version of Landry’s, so it was fine, but the view made it worth it. The drinks were beyond silly; Nicole’s changed color as it was prepared at the table and my, um, faux-jito was as delicious as the name was cringe. But honestly, who cares about that stuff? Here’s what it looked like:
The whole Hemisfair area is ridiculously nice, so we took a photo by a water fountain on the way back to the car. I am completely baffled by what I was thinking with that shirt, that hair, those glasses, and…everything, but Nicole is on point.
We took it easy the next morning and then drove out to beautiful Vanderpool, Texas to visit Lost Maples State Natural Area. We were a little early for the maples, which was a blessing of sorts as we had the park largely to ourselves.
We decided to hike the East Trail, which was listed at 4.7 miles (although door-to-door in the car, it was closer to six). This was the first cool afternoon of the fall, which meant it was absolutely ideal hiking weather. This is a pretty primitive park, so there were camp areas on the trail that consisted of nothing but slightly-cleared flat spots to pitch a tent. We were in a canyon between two…mesas? Long, flat-topped hills. Mesas. Anyway, the two converged and everything go quiet and we were treated to more and more springs coming in from the limestone cliffs.
Then there was a sign. I’ll paraphrase: “The trail gets steep AF for the next mile and a half. You are warned.” We’d seen people turn back, but, you know, it was a nice day so we gave it a shot. My friends, that sign was painfully accurate. The trail, such as it was, was nothing more than river rock-sized limestones and rough terraces. The altitude gain was only 450 feet, but that’s 25 more than Enchanted Rock and it was much, much steeper. We were grown-ups about it and took breaks, but we were pretty determined to finish it and so we did.
The photo with the lake way down in the distance is taken from the top of the mesa. There are actually two people in it on the path down on the right. Anyway, the view was appropriately breathtaking and we hiked from one end of the mesa to the other to get to the trail down…which was almost as tough as the ascent. It was a little less steep and a little more trail-like, but otherwise? It was tough.
The reward was that we were right by the little lake which was absolutely gorgeous. 100% worth the hike. We figured we were done, but we still had about two miles of (blessedly flat) distance to cover. The whole thing took about four hours, which was about an hour longer than we actually enjoyed it. We may have stopped at a little convenience store on the way back and had some extremely naughty snacks. We’d earned them.
We actually went back to Seguin to check on the cats because, you know, kittens. After providing them with some love, comfort, and fresh food, we headed back to the Havana for dinner. We’d stayed there many times before, but we’d never dined at their little on-site restaurant, Ocho. Since it was entirely outdoors (they have shutters they can close if the weather requires it), we figured this would be a good time to taste their wares. I can strongly recommend them; we had several small plates, all of which were good, and some of which were several notches above that.
And then we slept. Oh my stars did we sleep. Sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep. Such good sleep. The bed’s at the Havana are big and tall and firm and some of the bed linens are, get this…actually linen. Your mileage may vary, but this hotel is one of the very few places outside my own home where I sleep well.
We were pretty sore the next morning (duh), so of course, we walked to get coffee and the woman at the counter misheard the order of a quad espresso and made four double espressos instead. This made us quite popular with the desk crew at the hotel as they were the beneficiaries of our bounty. We had lunch at Rosario’s and damned if it isn’t still about perfect Tex-Mex and still #$%#^ reasonably priced. Given our physical state, it was mana from heaven and a perfect end to our little mini-adventure.
One thing that Nicole has taught me is that, if you don’t do things and make memories, time will fly by you and you’ll wonder where it went. I’m still learning as I get caught up in the work-recover-work cycle, but we really tried to do some new things and some things we love doing. It was a great way to spend a few days and I’m pretty sure I’ll remember it (and not just because #$%$%^ social media will remind me every year like clockwork). And I got to experience it all with her, which makes it so much better.
-RK
