La Hacienda - A for Atmosphere, F for food

Last night we met up with our old college friend R. for dinner. We picked him up from the airport at dinner time and told him we would take him someplace special for dinner.

We had been to La Hacienda once before with another friend when we first moved to San Antonio last summer, but hadn't been back since. Honestly, we were in such a mental whirl at that time (just go back through this blog and see) that we didn't really remember how the food was - but we did remember the great atmosphere.

La Hacienda has a very Old Mexico feel to it, with lots of wood and color. There is a large patio with an outdoor bar under huge live oaks - and last night being unseasonably cool for mid-May, we sat outside and enjoyed the breeze and the live band playing covers of Fleetwood Mac.

If you're nearby, La Hacienda would be a great place to go sit out and have a beer or a margarita. So I give it an "A" for atmosphere.

But based on last night's dinner, I can't say we'll be rushing back to eat again any time soon.

Kandie and I ordered the chicken enchiladas verde, and I encouraged R. to try the chicken enchiladas mole - one of my favorite Mexican dishes.

The chips were not a good foreshadowing of what was to come. The salsa was mild and pleasant, but the chips themselves were stale.

When the food finally came out, it had obviously been sitting under heat lamps for some time, as the sauces had started to form a crust and the refried beans had hardened along the edge of the plate. The chicken was relatively flavorless, and everything was tough.

Overall, a disappointment to have taken an out of town guest there.

Texas Highways

Texas Highways, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

This is much of my daily experience of Texas: back and forth on the highways.

the remains of the day

the remains of the day, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

SOOC.

went out to shoot at sunset last night after dinner.

I love these little black eyed susans. These weeds are growing in a drainage ditch not far from my house. I saw them when I was out running with K. yesterday and wanted to get back out to shoot them.

there is something about their delicate resistance, their unplanned beauty - how they force us to hold "weed" and "beautiful" in our mind simultaneously.

Soccer Saturday

Soccer Saturday, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

Last soccer game of the season. Not sure what this guy was trying to accomplish, but he did it with gusto!

I'll miss my weekend photo ops - but the kids might swim this summer, so maybe more opportunities coming...

Ferris Wheel - Six Flags/Fiesta Texas

Win a prize every time. That's how I feel about ferris wheels.

Where does the name come from? I looked in Wikipedia - which knows all - and I found some history. But I have to wonder - is it not a derivation of "ferrous" - i.e., an iron wheel?

There is something wonderful about the slow turn of the ferris wheel. it takes you high above the ordinary existence of mere mortals. It turns and takes you down again. Like Boethius's wheel of fortune, or perhaps Pat Sajak's.

it doesn't take much height to get above the noise of the throng. I remember that most profoundly from when I went through jump school. Before the parachute opened, there was nothing but the roar of the wind. But once the chute opened and you'd been jerked out of your fear of being smeared on the ground below, and before you had to worry about making a plf that didn't involve broken bones, there was an intense sense of serenity - of utter quiet - there above the earth, where the men and the ambulances below looked small, like toy models of real men and real ambulances. A few hundred feet of elevation is all it takes to make the common small - to bring it back to its appropriate scale.

"It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid."
- Robert Frost

wild flowers

I'd been passing patches of these flowers for the last week or so - and had been marking where I wanted to go to try to get some shots.



Seems I was a little late - many have already begun to lose their petals - but still I think I was able to capture a few nice shots.



This shot is "SOOC" or "straight out of the camera" - meaning I did not process it at all in Photo Shop. Not even to crop.



Of course wild flowers grow wherever they grow - there is no organization. These were growing right in the middle of the others. (Are they black-eyed Susans?)



I'm dying to get back to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens now that spring is well under way, and before the heat roasts all the flowers. We'll see!

creative destruction

creative destruction, a photo by Mark Bonica on Flickr.

a little sample of Schumpetarian creative destruction on highway 78.

snapped this picture with my phone cam while I was gassing up on the way home. This video store has been out of business for at least a few months.