San Antonio

The actual trip to San Antonio?  Oh.  Well, that was fabulous.

I went to see my friend, not the place.  I've been to see her before, and I checked the RiverWalk and Alamo boxes long ago.  But they don't compare to time spent just being with this dear, dear person whom I've known since my Sophomore year at Creighton.

All these years later -- 18! -- it is pure soul-refreshment to talk and walk and eat and pray with her.

***

Something I really like about San Antonio:  It's a humble place.  A pretty big city, big enough to have its own NBA team, right?--but no one walks around with a big city posture.

(This is not my experience in, say, Chicago, a very fun place to be, but a place where the folks I see walking around would never call themselves, "folks.")

Colorado Springs is not podunk by anyone's estimation, I don't think.  But we have no true claim to cosmopolitanism.  The real city around here is Denver (and those Denverites know it!)

Colorado Springs.  What is it, even?  A nice, bigger town.  Where people are too busy hiking, camping and skiing and deploying to do much of anything else.

***

The weekend of my trip had been planned originally as a getaway for me and Bryan together.  But then we became delegates to our county and State Republican assemblies, the weekend for which became our new "getaway."  Definitely more to report about all that stuff, which happens soon.

***

On the flight down from Denver, I saw a few minutes of a food show called "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," or something like that.  I resented it right away because of the host.  I've seen him around, and I take it he's a bit of a celebrity.

Why resent him?  Because he's ugly and fat.  And I have nothing against "ugly" and "fat," but I am annoyed that "ugly" and "fat" women are not given hosting positions like this on television.  Why should he?  Huh? 

You're telling me there no man who measures up to the same standard required of women who want to be on TV and who has just as much personality as this guy?

***

Well.  On this show, he was in a San Antonio "dive" called "Dough."

This place fires their pizzas for 90 seconds in a pizza oven that was imported from Naples.  They open at whatever time and close "When the fresh-mozarella runs out"--e.g. they make the cheese every morning.

It looked de-lish-us.  

This place was in the neighborhood of my hotel and my friend's house, and so we went.  And nothing about it looked like a dive.  It was a classy place, front to back, up and down.  A 10 for presentation.

And the food. . .oh, the food.  I am not a frivolous person, but I really think it would be worth a plane ticket to fly to San Antonio to eat there a few times in one weekend.

It was the kind of food that made us interrupt each other's conversation to say, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I just have to say: this bite right here--shut up, it's so crazy good."

***

Sunday, for lunch, my friend offered to take me back.  But Mexican food sounded good to her, and that was good for me, too.  I almost didn't want to try a different pizza at Dough for fear that it wouldn't be as startling.

We ate at Papacita's, which is a Texas family chain of sorts.

I don't even appreciate Mexican food.  Friends tell me that Colorado Springs doesn't have one single good Mexican food place serving today.  And I'm like, "But there's Qudoba right there off of Powers Avenue." 

(That's something else about the Springs: Very few independent places, totally dominated by chains and franchises, especially on our side of town.)

We ordered fajitas.  And again: "Get out of here. . ."
We subbed grilled vegetables for the rice and beans and I figured I'd eat them--as I do all vegetables--only because I know they are good for me and not because I enjoy eating them.

But these vegetables.  Shut up!  How can a vegetable taste so good?  Grilled!  Without butter!

I told my friend, "The last time I've eaten back-to-back meals this good, I was in Italy."

Wow.

That was some good eating.

***

Too soon, it was time to fly home.

All went smoothly.

The connection from Denver to the Springs was, again, a propeller plane.  But night air is far more calm than day air because the sun isn't heating it up into drafts.  (That sounds reasonable, right?  I'm kind of just tossin' stuff out here.)

The plane was so small, we had to check our regular-sized carry-ons at the gate, and then wait outside for them to cart it over.

There we stood, just out of Denver, at 10:30 PM, thankful that a warm front had settled in earlier that day.  It would take just a few minutes.

One young woman, who obviously had not gate checked a bag, saw the growing crowd on the tarmac, waiting, and asked me, "We have to pick up our luggage out here?"

That's right, miss, you're in cow country now.