Celebrating Mom's Birthday

We took Mom to the Riverwalk today for her birthday - and what a beautiful day it was.  We parked at the Pearl Brewery Complex, and walked down a short flight of stairs to where the Museum Reach of the Riverwalk begins.  We thought we'd be able to catch a River Taxi real close to there, but one never came, so we started walking towards downtown slowly.  We walked a short distance, when we saw a River Taxi coming in the opposite direction, so we knew it had to turn around at the end and come back by where we were.  So, we waited for it to arrive.  We were only going to do the Museum Reach of the River Walk, but when we got on the boat, the guy convinced us to do the ENTIRE Riverwalk, saying it only took about 40 minutes to get to downtown.

Well, he was more or less correct.  Since the way it works is you have to get off the "red" taxi (which only does the northern part of the Museum Reach), and wait for a "yellow" taxi, which takes you further into the downtown section of the Riverwalk, it ended up taking longer because it took a REALLY long time for the yellow taxi to show up.  We actually started walking (again) up the river because it was taking so long.  When the yellow taxi finally showed up, we got on it at that point, but had to go BACK to where we had been waiting for it to begin with, because it had to finish its route.
So, now we're back to where the red taxi had dropped us off, but we can't continue on with the yellow taxi, because we have to wait for the NEXT red taxi that has passengers who want to catch our yellow taxi.  Very frustrating!!!  Finally, finally, we get on our way, and the rest of the trip towards downtown goes relatively quickly.
It was a beautiful, sunny day and the Riverwalk looked so beautiful.  We got off of the yellow taxi at Casa Rio, and we were going to have lunch there, but the wait was too long and we ended up at another riverside restaurant called "The Republic of Texas".  The food was good, and it was so pleasant sitting outside along the river.  We shared a good chocolate cake for dessert!!

 After lunch, we walked a little along the river to a spot where we thought we could catch a yellow taxi back to the Museum Reach.  We sat there for a little while, and realized we never saw any boats going in the direction we wanted.  They were all going the other way.  We figured this must be a "one way section" of the river, so we walked a little further up the river to where we thought the boats might be going the direction we wanted.  Guillermo went on ahead just in case a yellow taxi would be passing, and he would hold it for us, and sure enough, there was a yellow taxi passing, so we had to rush to catch it!
There was the same slowdown where we had to get off the yellow taxi, to catch a red one.  We waited for the longest time for a red taxi!!!  But eventually one came, and took us back to the Pearl Brewery Complex.  It was interesting going through the locks, and all in all, it was a very nice day!!!