Finally made it across the river to walk along Hinman Island Drive and inspect the Comal toob (sic) chutes. There are a couple of weirs just downstream of the condo that the community has constructed smooth “toob” wide slides to allow toob passage (these have nothing on Harvie Passage in YYC). There is also a large public park just upstream from the Schlitterbahn water park. This is apparently very popular in the hot summer months. Not much happening this time of year. Back at the condo for a quick bite and we were off to Pedago eBikes to rent one (each). The very helpful Pokky set us up and took us for a spin over to Landa Park. We stopped with her at a couple of points of interest including Comal Spring where the water emerges from the Balcones Escarpment and feeds the Comal River. This is a very important historical feature that was well known to the nomadic tribes that frequented the area. Pokky sent us on our way at the end of the road construction where Hinman Island Road meets West Torrey St. We “pedalled” along towards Gruene, ostensibly for lunch, but when we arrived, we found the community even busier and not wanting to waste rental time, we just decided to return to Landa Park. But on the way, we made a stop at the fabulous Hoity Toit bar and made new besties with some local denizens over a Lone Star beer. We took off from there along Lakeview Drive which took us up and over the Balcones Escarpment and along some of the nicer real estate in New Braunfels. The road dropped back down to the Comal Spring where we spent a bit more time learning about the history of this important geological and cultural feature. We noted a family filling up their carboys with fresh spring water, which likely is a common practice hereabouts. We cycled through some of the pathways within Landa Park, but found it to be a bit busy with small children on their scooters round about, and our 2 hour time window was just about up so back we went to Pedago and returned the bikes. After the short walk back to the condo we wiled away the afternoon on the veranda. Decided we should check out a bit more of the music scene, so we headed over to the Pour Haus patio bar which abuts the Downtown Social Club. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone performing here but we did catch the last bit of sun out on the patio. These two places look to be pretty interesting and seemed busy for a Thursday afternoon. We decided to have a look elsewhere and headed over to Castell Avenue to see what was up. The Krause Cafe looked extremely busy so we pulled around the block and eventually found a very convenient parking spot. The cover charge was $20 for a performance by the “very popular” Mollie B. (according to the hostess). In we went and spotted an empty picnic table. With a couple of glasses of Shiner, we settled in to see what happened next in the Biergarten. What was next was ordering some Schnitzel and a Pretzel (which was most pleasing - again we shared a single order that was plenty for two). Along about then, Mollie B took the stage for some serious Oom Pah Pah! The biergarten was packed with paying customers who new exactly what they were getting into. Karen and I thought we’d crashed a wedding reception. Multiple generations joyfully polka dancing away with abandon. It was really rather entertaining to see this obviously popular local pastime. German heritage on full display. Once we had our fill, there was another stop on the list so we popped over to the Sidecar for an ADD. This is a basement bar (basements are rare in Texas) in the Prince Solms Inn designed to illicit a sense of the Speakeasy era. We enjoyed listening to Owen Stroud tickling the ivories with a couple of cocktails that were just the ticket. And that’s it for our Thursday. I still don’t think we’ve figured out how to hit the highlights, might require a bit more advance planning?
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