I had to make a short trip downtown today yesterday and thought, what the heck, since they claim to be coming really close to finishing our new River Walk extension, it must be worth taking a minute or two to gander over the side of the bridge. From my vantage point at the bridge on McCullough and St Mary's, here are a few pictures.
The landscaping is coming right along with several areas full of green grass, lots of small bushes going and of course, palm trees.
I'm thinking with some good rain, things will fill in nicely. I can almost see the river boats full of fancy tourists floating by while drunk people drop cell phones and beer bottles in the water in appreciation. Good times.
Interestingly enough, there have been several stories about the art going in around the bridges - lots of sculptures and such. Under this bridge, it looks like the artist has made some sort of screens. I know I could probably do a quick search and figure out what he/she was going for, but I'm not that interested, and I'm sort of lazy that way on a Friday afternoon. In spite of not knowing what it is, it looks kinda nice.
Wanna see more? Head on over to the Flickr page to get the full River Walk Construction Experience. Perhaps that can be a new ride at Fiesta Texas next year.
In case you hadn't seen the news, San Antonio has been in a record setting drought this year but in the last two days, we have gotten a wonderful, almost steady stream of the good kind of rain that fills the aquifer and makes the grass turn green.
So today, I had to do some work at my downtown office and thought I would wander over to the River Walk near McCullough and St Mary's, to see how the sudden onset of precipitation had impacted the construction.
Well! I wasn't expecting water in the river! I know, that probably sounds goofy, but if you have been following my river walk construction updates, you know that the water along this stretch of river has been diverted into two huge pipes. Apparently, all this rain was a bit more than the pipes could handle. And look how the brown grass (which I was sure had just withered and died) is totally golf course green.
And of course, other shrubs and plants and trees (except for the palm that looks like it didn't make it) are looking good. The last picture (above, right) shows the end of the water pipe feeding back into the regular river at the Lexington Avenue Bridge. It is flowing pretty darn good! We'll see how long it takes the excess river water to be drained.
Wanna see all the pictures? Of course you do. Head over to the River Walk Construction page on Flickr and see the transformation.
I had to make a short trip downtown today and thought, what the heck, it's probably too cold for tourists, so why not see if anything else is going on over the side of the bridge, and in fact, we have some actual progress in our new River Walk extension. From my vantage point at the bridge on McCullough and St Mary's, here are a few pictures.
The first thing you'll notice new from my last visit is that they have spread some fresh dark soil. And, in spite of the chilly weather, looks like things are starting to grow.
I was especially impressed with the way the stairwells worked out.
Looking further down the dry riverbed toward downtown, it was cool to see an actual barge turning around at the Lexington Avenue Bridge, just a block up.
These are pictures taken from the usual location, the bridge at McCullough Ave near North St. Mary's Street. Here. we are looking north of the downtown area. Notice the ground cover coming in a little more.
Looking toward downtown, you can see the palm trees are still taking root and the light poles are firmly in place. Off in the distance is the Lexington Street bridge and there is a river barge turning around (since the water pretty much stops there).
