Well, today I managed to "do" San Anton' after a bit of wrestling with my inner can't.
First attempt I made to get into downtown was foiled by uncareful reading of my map and the sun being hidden by clouds, making it difficult for me to get oriented. All I got was lost and a bit rained on.
But after I headed back to the truck stop to broood a bit and have a sub, the skies had cleared up again and I made another go at heading into town with what I had previously learnt of the local streets and this time I made it there. I saw and toured the alamo and then I walked the river walk and had some chinese food for dinner. I got a few photographs of downtown, a pic of a park ranger photographing a bunch of japanese tourists out in front of the alamo.
The san antonio river walk is really beautiful and I very much hope I'll get to come back here/there sometime. I don't know whether tomorrow I'll be able to get there; as I don't know where the volvo dealership is that my truck will be getting fixed at. It's also suppose to rain all day tomorrow and that won't be suitable for biking. I wished i didn't have to come back here afterwards, it would have been a great place to stay and have a few beers into the wee hours of the morning with a good friend or two and then be able to walk back home.
For those of you who like me up until this afternoon were unfamiliar with the San Antonio river walk, it is a sort of man made/ natural environment lined with cafes and bars, jewelry and junk stores. Actually not unlike the boardwalk in Atlantic City, but without any boards or casinos. Actuallly almost entirely different, but whatever.
It's a bit wierd in that it's a loop off of a small river, smaller than the mill river in my hometown of Northampton mass, but the main river that it joins up with, that also has a lot of riverwalk along it, is just as small. It's like a little canal that does not connect up with a larger river like the Connecticut or the Schuylkill, the main river is just as small. There are motorbarges that go up and down the river with guides telling loads of tourists about what they're passing by. I wonder if I could get that job with my CDL.
Anyway, having found that place I hated to have to leave it. I guess it's a good thing to have more to look forward to in the future, another chance hopefully someday to explore more of san anton'. The girl watching also tends to pretty decent in texas from what I've seen so far. That might just have to do with being here on a weekend when the young women are out and about. There does seem to be a fairly signature texas look about them, which is not at all a bad thing, really.
I was thinking that i seem to be an explorer at heart. When my truck stops I either eat, sleep, surf the web when I have connectivity or get out wandering around the place I've found myself. I often wish I'd been around 150 years ago when there was so much to be seen for the first time and so much that is gone now. It seems to me that given my passion for exploration that maybe American History would in fact be a good thing for me to pursue academically someday, assuming I could satisfactorily combine academic study with my wanderlust. Because a lot of what you find when you get around the next bend in the road is history, though certainly you find a lot of today as well. Maybe I could study the history of exploration. Thing about what to do with my life is that I really love art, I have an original psychological theory that has no home academically, and I also love history and all the texture of being it has. Art and history both have a lot of texture of being. And I have an inner "can't"/pessimism/anxiety problem that makes it very difficult for me to assess what really is feasible versus what is my neurotic assessment of what is or is not feasible and worth doing, and interesting enough to do.
I was also thinking that "can" and can't are projections, attempts to make a statement about a world that makes no statement. In the external world there is nothing to signify and it's giving no signal. but I compare my actions with those of other truckers, or with artists or other persons that I admire and my mind keeps construing their lives context in which to evaluate mine, when in actual reality noone else's life in any way comprises a context in which to evaluate mine. I seem to do lots of things that other truckers do not do. Well so what? why should I give a rat's ass about them? Mostly I don't anyway, but my mind still has some unuseful habits. Cum eis, non eorum.
What is useful about others' lives is that they can show you possibilities, and sometimes you can find possibilities that others have not seen. The positive way to view others is as resources to help you grow, not for tearing yourself down as one who does not measure up, as I tend to do.
That's me today I guess.
First attempt I made to get into downtown was foiled by uncareful reading of my map and the sun being hidden by clouds, making it difficult for me to get oriented. All I got was lost and a bit rained on.
But after I headed back to the truck stop to broood a bit and have a sub, the skies had cleared up again and I made another go at heading into town with what I had previously learnt of the local streets and this time I made it there. I saw and toured the alamo and then I walked the river walk and had some chinese food for dinner. I got a few photographs of downtown, a pic of a park ranger photographing a bunch of japanese tourists out in front of the alamo.
The san antonio river walk is really beautiful and I very much hope I'll get to come back here/there sometime. I don't know whether tomorrow I'll be able to get there; as I don't know where the volvo dealership is that my truck will be getting fixed at. It's also suppose to rain all day tomorrow and that won't be suitable for biking. I wished i didn't have to come back here afterwards, it would have been a great place to stay and have a few beers into the wee hours of the morning with a good friend or two and then be able to walk back home.
For those of you who like me up until this afternoon were unfamiliar with the San Antonio river walk, it is a sort of man made/ natural environment lined with cafes and bars, jewelry and junk stores. Actually not unlike the boardwalk in Atlantic City, but without any boards or casinos. Actuallly almost entirely different, but whatever.
It's a bit wierd in that it's a loop off of a small river, smaller than the mill river in my hometown of Northampton mass, but the main river that it joins up with, that also has a lot of riverwalk along it, is just as small. It's like a little canal that does not connect up with a larger river like the Connecticut or the Schuylkill, the main river is just as small. There are motorbarges that go up and down the river with guides telling loads of tourists about what they're passing by. I wonder if I could get that job with my CDL.
Anyway, having found that place I hated to have to leave it. I guess it's a good thing to have more to look forward to in the future, another chance hopefully someday to explore more of san anton'. The girl watching also tends to pretty decent in texas from what I've seen so far. That might just have to do with being here on a weekend when the young women are out and about. There does seem to be a fairly signature texas look about them, which is not at all a bad thing, really.
I was thinking that i seem to be an explorer at heart. When my truck stops I either eat, sleep, surf the web when I have connectivity or get out wandering around the place I've found myself. I often wish I'd been around 150 years ago when there was so much to be seen for the first time and so much that is gone now. It seems to me that given my passion for exploration that maybe American History would in fact be a good thing for me to pursue academically someday, assuming I could satisfactorily combine academic study with my wanderlust. Because a lot of what you find when you get around the next bend in the road is history, though certainly you find a lot of today as well. Maybe I could study the history of exploration. Thing about what to do with my life is that I really love art, I have an original psychological theory that has no home academically, and I also love history and all the texture of being it has. Art and history both have a lot of texture of being. And I have an inner "can't"/pessimism/anxiety problem that makes it very difficult for me to assess what really is feasible versus what is my neurotic assessment of what is or is not feasible and worth doing, and interesting enough to do.
I was also thinking that "can" and can't are projections, attempts to make a statement about a world that makes no statement. In the external world there is nothing to signify and it's giving no signal. but I compare my actions with those of other truckers, or with artists or other persons that I admire and my mind keeps construing their lives context in which to evaluate mine, when in actual reality noone else's life in any way comprises a context in which to evaluate mine. I seem to do lots of things that other truckers do not do. Well so what? why should I give a rat's ass about them? Mostly I don't anyway, but my mind still has some unuseful habits. Cum eis, non eorum.
What is useful about others' lives is that they can show you possibilities, and sometimes you can find possibilities that others have not seen. The positive way to view others is as resources to help you grow, not for tearing yourself down as one who does not measure up, as I tend to do.
That's me today I guess.