San Antonio Part I: It's Hot.

Shortly after we flew over the scribble of the Mississippi, the topography completely changed. It was suddenly.....brown. Brown, brown, and browner with scrubby little trees dotting the landscapes.

Lee was sitting in the seat directly behind me and poked my shoulder.

"It looks hot," he said in a fantastic analysis of the stretch of land below us. "There are no clouds! It's all brown!"

This was my first impression of Texas. Flat and brown.

We landed, got our baggage, and found a queue for a taxi out front. Stepping out of the air conditioning, we were met with what can only be described as a suffocating wall of heat. I now fully and completely understand the term "dry heat" and, let me tell you, it's just as breath-taking as wet heat.

San Antonio itself is a completely beautiful city. Old Spanish architecture flush against some early 20th century Art Deco detailing, cacti and palm trees stretching upwards towards rickety fire escapes. The River Walk is a half mile or so of a twisting, shallow, jade-colored stream of water about fifteen feet across and flanked by a tropical oasis of flowering gardens and the brightest of greenery. Little cafes from all influences (Spanish, jazz, Tex Mex, Irish pub, steak house, and even German Gasthouse) line the River Walk with tables spilling out onto the sidewalks beneath brightly colored umbrellas.

We sat outside a restaurant called The Republic of Texas last night (where, yes, I had a prickly pear margarita, which is quite sweet and some unnatural magenta color) and ate the most perfect guacamole while watching the tour boats float up and down the River Walk. People-watching is ideal. Some cafes have jazz bands outside, some mariachi, and the result is a tangled mess of sound and smells wafting up above us and above the fairy lights strung across the river. At eleven o'clock last night it was still 95 degrees.

The bar in the hotel is all dark, polished wood with bronze fixtures and, of course, a giant stuffed moose head in tribute to the bar's former regular, Teddy Roosevelt. Pictures of the Rough Riders line the wall, and a glass case houses samples of uniforms, bits and bridles, and guns. Gitanes was happy because, apparently, the state of Texas never got around to outlawing smoking indoors.

And I wasn't. apparently, too far off in my ascertaining of the Texas justice community. Late last night on our way to The Original Mexican Restaurant (that's seriously the name of it) for some burritos and beer, we crossed the street and were suddenly accosted by an officer roughly seven feet tall with shoulders about half that much across.

"Hey!" he barked. "You get right back over here!" He commandeered our collective drunken vehicle over to the side of the road and stuck his sausage finger in my face. "What you just did? Right there? That's called jaywalking. And that's a hundred eighty dollar ticket, you got me?"

We stood there, stunned. Jaywalking? What the hell is jaywalking? In Baltimore, the cops are mostly worried about dead bodies turning up in the Inner Harbor or whether or not I've got a rock in my pocket. Jaywalking? JAYWALKING?

One of the guys in our group started to speak up, and Officer Sausage immediately whipped around and stuck a finger in his face.

"I don't even want to hear it! Now you shut up and I'm going to give you an ass chewing. Ass chewing or a hundred eighty dollar ticket? Just stand there and take your ass chewing and I'll let you all go."

I was apoplectic with trying not to laugh. I was seven drinks deep and being accosted by a member of the San Antonio police force and I hadn't even been there for a full day yet. For all of my talk of someone being arrested, I never thought it would be for jaywalking. If he said "ass chewing" one more time, I was going to lose it.

"Now there's a lot of bad traffic here and these nimrods don't know where they're going. They just see a green light and go, you know? It's DANGEROUS. That angle you were about to cross the street on? That's not an angle in the crosswalk. It's DANGEROUS. You stay on the crosswalks and obey the lights, understand? Hundred eighty dollar ticket if you don't. OK, ass chewing over. You folks have a nice night."

I turned to Lee. "What just happened?" I said. He shrugged, and we all managed to hold in our laughter until we were down at the River Walk and safely out of earshot.

JAYWALKING IS A CRIME.

All crime aside, this is a truly beautiful city. I've taken about a hundred photos and will post them here once we get home. Lee and I had breakfast in a German deli this morning (where they serve bratwurst and biscuits with eggs- I couldn't be happier) before walking around the Alamo (where, of course, we took inappropriate pictures with cacti) and buying some souvies in a shop called The Jackalope.

Wedding is tonight, it's 102 degrees out, and I haven't seen any ghosts yet which is a good thing. I miss Ghil and wish that he could be here with us as well. The biggest challenge today is making sure none of the groomsmen (or the groom) are too drunk to stand through the fifteen minute ceremony in their tuxes outside in some garden thing. 102 degrees, man. Don't ever let anyone tell you that dry heat is more comfortable than humidity when you're talking temperatures above 95 degrees. Heat is heat.

Pictures and more updates to follow. In the meantime, I'm off to go drink some Sangria and hunt down some more of that magical guacamole. While obeying all crosswalks and lights, of course. Jaywalking is a crime, you know, and the last thing I want is another ass chewing.