Travelin' Tuesday: St. Patty's on the Riverwalk

My first travel related 30 before 30, although number 2 will be close on it's heels.  It's road trip time!  Back in the day (almost one year ago!) after we got married we drove down to San Antonio for a little minimoon action.

We stayed at the same hotel that we spent our very first trip together, for sentimental reasons.  Well, that hotel happened to be doing a little construction while we were there, and by little I mean of the jack hammer variety.  We were still high off of the excitement and love from our wedding that we just overlooked it and made the best of our relaxing, newlywed days.

After returning home, I received one of those email surveys which I don't always fill out because most of the time I never hear anything back (I'm looking at you Ford!).  This time around I decided to take a couple of minutes to fill it out, explaining that the jack hammering was a little bit annoying even though we were placed on one of the top floors.  Well imagine my surprise when my phone rang later that same day with the manager of the Hampton on the other end.  She apologized for the construction, informing me that our stay was the end of renovations, and asked if she could send a gift card for a free return stay.  Who turns down a free hotel stay?  So I said yes, and promptly forgot about it until I found the card when we were packing up the apartment.

With the expiration looming, we decided to book a weekend stay coinciding with Chris' spring break from school which lined up perfectly with St. Patty's day.

We didn't have many plans for this 2 night trip, just get out of town and enjoy some downtime together. We made great timing leaving the house around 6:45 am and getting into town around 11:30, just in time for a couple of green beers.  After a round of those it was time for lunch and more drinks.

One of the cool parts of St. Patty's day is that they have a parade and dye the river green. 

With no real plans, we randomly came upon a glass blown store when this caught my eye.

So awesome!  We browsed around and learned from the shop employee that they were having glass blowing demos at the warehouse until 3.  Chris has always wanted to check this out so we made the trek over to the warehouse and watched as they went from this...

to this...

I won't pretend to know how they do it, but it was all completed in less than 30 mins and was amazing to watch.

They usually work on a couple of pieces at a time, so we also had the opportunity to watch as they added color and made this vase.

I loved the opening shape of the second vase and after walking around the showroom, we left with this candle holder.  When a candle is lit inside, the light that emits through the design spots and lines dances around the room.

With a mixture of spring breakers (college and younger), St. Patty's day, an Air Force event and a half marathon near the Alamo, the Riverwalk was packed Saturday night.  We knew we would have to wait for dinner, but at Casa Rio they weren't even taking names.  As in people were in line for 20-30 minutes just to put their names on the list and then wait another 45-60 minutes to actually get a table.  Once we learned this, we quickly exited the line and headed down the way to another Mexican place with awesome "yargaritas" to enjoy during our 15 minute wait. 

I made the mistake of ordering the grande shrimp quesadilla, and while it was so tasty it was also a little too big so I sadly left some behind (after making Chris eat a couple of pieces).

One other random happening during our trip occurred on our walk to see 21 Jump Street (which was hilarious!). Who can say no to free wine tastings?  Especially when they include wine smoothies?

Their wines are more tropical with fruits coming from Florida.  The employee was so nice, giving a great run down of all of their wines as well as some nice sized pours.

The wine smoothies were a big hit with us!  There are so many combinations that you can come up with based on the type of mix and the type of wine. 

We both loved the one in the middle which was a base of Pineapple Coconut smoothie mix with the Raspberry wine.  We picked up those bottles along with a Strawberry wine and the white sangria Category 5.

All in all it was a great get away, and we even had the chance to check out a couple of new things in a destination that we've been before.

Have you traveled to a repeat location and found something new and interesting about it?