San Antonio: First Impressions

The girls and I have spent the weekend in San Antonio with the hubby -- neighborhood browsing, school shopping, and generally sight-seeing.  Our first introduction to our new hometown. 

I'll admit, part of me was a bit wary of moving to a big city.  I've really enjoyed the size of Sioux City -- big enough to have just about anything you need there, small enough to not have to deal with bad traffic, gangs, etc.  And the traffic here was a big daunting when I first started driving around in it Friday morning. 

But I tell ya . . . San Antonio knows how to manage traffic.  All the streets are wide (a big difference with the other major urban area I've spent a lot of time in, South Jersey).  Hubby's office is right off of "loop 1604", a big highway that loops around the outskirts of town, so we've spent a lot of time around the north stretch of that highway.  A six-lane highway . . . with three-lane frontage roads.  I mean, this thing is huge.  But it is amazingly efficient to travel on.  Those wide frontage roads are the key: you have the right lane for turning in and out of businesses and such, the left lane for merging onto and off of the freeway, and the center lane for through traffic -- which, except for the stoplights at crossroads, can flow almost as smoothly and quickly as the freeway.  And the entrances and exits to the freeway are far enough from the crossroads that you have plenty of time to get into the lane you need to be in.  Really, it's pretty darn slick.

And my thought was, they had to have put this huge highway in long before the businesses popped up, because otherwise, adding the frontage roads would have required tearing down all the businesses and moving them.  And apparently they did build the highway first ("if you build it, they will come . . .").  Hubby says the highway is just as wide around the south end of town, where it kind of seems like a waste because it's not nearly as built up in the south.  Optimism.  Planning ahead rather than catching up.

My other initial observation:  San Antonio is very green.  Much greener than I expected.  I've always imagined Texas, particularly west Texas, as vast tracts of empty, dry land.  I mean, in my head, I knew they had ranches and stuff down here, so they must have enough green grass to support all their cattle. 

But San Antonio is beautiful.  Lot of lovely trees and rolling hills.  The mall we went to yesterday afternoon had an open courtyard throughout the center with trees and water fountains.  And the River Walk downtown . . . oh, my goodness!  Just gorgeous.  Not only green and natural, but with stone bridge built for walkways over the river. 

So, all in all, I'm flying out today with a good impression of our upcoming stomping grounds.  Now, if we could just find a home . . . and sell our home in Sioux City . . . anyone interested in a two-story on the south edge of Morningside?