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dolari1984, San Antonio, Texas
Back in the day, there was a chain of burger joints that my mother loved with all her might, called Whopper Burger. She passed this love on to her children, who enjoyed the flat wide burgers, the sodas served in oversized styrofoam tub-like cups, and the french fries that came right out of your school lunchroom.
Then came the Empire. In the late 1970s, Burger King decided to move into the San Antonio area, only to find there already was a Whopper Burger being served in town. They sued, claiming trademark infringement. It didn't take long before BK realized Whopper Burger had been around longer than they had, and they'd lose. So they made a settlement with Whopper Burger - BK wouldn't invade their territory as long as Whopper Burger didn't get outside of a two county area of San Antonio. All was well...
...until 1984. Whopper Burger had opened up stores all over town, but was losing money hand over fries. They needed a quick bailout...and who came calling with a solution? Burger King. They bought most of the Whopper Burger stores for a tidy sum, and forced Whopper Burger to change their name to Burger Boy.
There were a few Burger Boys left. There was one just south of Crossroads/Wonderland Mall for a good number of years. There was another on Fredericksburg Road. But eventually, they all but dissapeared into the dustbin of San Antonio history and Corporate Globalization.
A few weeks ago...
I was scanning the San Antonio news, as I often do when I'm feeling homesick for San Antonio, when a headline catches my eye: "Blue Plate Award: Burger Boy." HUH WHA?!
WOAI (nee KMOL) does this "Kitchen Cops" thing where they do surprise inspections of restaurants, and grade them based on cleanliness. They hit this place and found it hit code 100% and gave them an award for it. But I didn't care about the cleanliness...they awarded it to a BURGER BOY.
I did a search online to see if this was one of the fabled San Antonio Burger Boy chain, and I couldn't find any information at all on it. Just an address - 2323 North St Mary's. After digging through enough search engines to shake a stick at, I finally came across one mention of that Burger Boy - http://calendar.sacurrent.com/restaurants/place.asp?id=2144 . With a picture! So I look carefully, and the fries are the same Whopper Burger fries...the burger is a burger...the color scheme is orange on white, same as the old Whopper Burger (and confusingly close Whataburger)...but then, in the background on a menu, was the barely legible mascot of Whopper Burger - The Burger Boy himself.
This was the last of the Whopper Burgers. The pilgrimage would begin on my first full weekend off....
Thursday
I began my trip by heading back to the Camino Real to take pictures of spots where the road was "off-road." I'd brought along my laptop this time, and used saved satellite pictures to match up what I saw from the air with what was on the ground. Sure enough, I found the old roadway. It had some scrub, but was still generally clear - not bad for a road that prolly hadn't been used in over a 150 years.
Along the way to New Braunsfels, I was taking pics of the Camino Markers and making note of where they were for a website I plan to put together about it. The one above is the first marker, just on the other side of the Comal county line. There were several I was trying to find, since I hadn't seen them in a long time, and the markers, despite being several hundred pounds, often get stolen or moved.
Two markers, in particular, I couldn't find the last few times I'd been there. One north of New Braunsfels, between the McCoy's Builders Factory and the Wal Mart Distribution Center, the other south of New Braunfels in Solms. The north one I almost gave up on...I'd swept the area four times looking for it, on a one way frontage road for the freeway. When I'd pass the spot it should have been, I'd end up having to make a gigantic turnaround. After the fourth time, I'd pretty much given up hope...then I remembered - I had my camera with pictures of the OTHER monuments.
I walked into the McCoy's office and showed pictures of it to the receptionist there, who said she'd seen it just last month, up the road. So it was still there. A few feet up the road, I asked a guy who was living in a mobile home park there. After getting the typical response I would have expected from a mobile home resident at home drinking beers without a shirt at 2PM ("That's a purty camera you got there...you from around here?") I moved on...and I found the poor thing.
It's set in a ditch below road level, so you can't really see it from the road easily. It's also totally surrounded by high grass taller than itself. TO be honest, I only caught it because someone put a beer bottle on it. I cleared away some of the grass in front, got my picture, marked it's position, and went on my way. I may go out there with some hedge clippers and clear it away a bit...it's not that far from here.
Going into New Braunsfels, I traced the Camino down a few new roads that matched up better with the ground notes taken in 1915, and took a walk up the Faust Street Bridge (an old abandonned bridge that was recently renovated into a pedestrian bridge) over the Guadalupe River. I'll post a panoramic picture, when I get back home.
Moving through New Braunsfels (I'd seen most everything I wanted to last week), I hit Solms, and combed the area for the 2nd lost marker. And I combed and combed and combed, using the one picture I had as a reference taken several years ago. I still couldn't find it. I asked residents who had no idea what I was talking about even with pictures. And old man sitting on his porch watching construction talked to me for a while about the Camino and said he hadn't seen that marker in a long time. I began to drive away from Solms on the Camino, when I found it - it was on the other side of Solms, not in Solms, and was cordoned off with some plastic construction gating, as they were repaving the road. With the location marked, I kept going into town.
San Antonio gets all its water from the Edwards Underground Aquifer. Water in there is INCREDIBLY pure, to the point that San Antonio pulls the water from there with only some very very very minor filtering. Doesn't need it as the water spends several years slowly dripping through the limestone layers, which filters the water for them. I've had water direct from the aquifer, because I know where there's a pump....
This pump is in an old town called Comaltown, at the junction of FM 482 and Nacogdoches Road. In it's heyday, this was a major crossroads. The main Postal Road from San Antonio came through here, and joined with the Camino Real at this spot. The buildings here are vintage 1800s ghost town, like you see in the cartoons.
The well isnt' from that time, but seems to be a lot newer, maybe the 50s or so. The concrete is still good, the pump is a bit rusty but taken care of. When I first found it, it was hidden deep against a fenceline near a cemetary, completely grown over. As you can see, someone cleared the area, and the pump seems to get used now. Before, I'd have to pump it a good number of times to get clear water (pieces of rust would flow out with the water the first few pumps) but this time it pumped clear on the first go. Someone else is using this pump for water now. :)
Continuing down the Camino, I found an old crumbling German Rock Wall. Germans settled Central Texas fairly early, being the first non-Indian inhabitants of the area (Mexicans stayed mostly in San Antonio, and then settled the towns the Germans created), and when they staked out their lands, they'd just pile rocks into a wall. No mortar, no real support, other than "The right rocks, in the right spots." There are a few around that haven't collapsed (After almost 175 years, I find that amazing). I was noticing the fence line when I came across a portion that wasn't in ruins at all (in fact it was really well put together, connected to an very well kept up, but obviously old stone house. I pulled around and got some pics (that won't be posted as per the owner's request).
So I was taking these pics, when someone comes out of the house, and confronts me - "What's the occasion, son?!" Texans are pretty fierce about property rights, and I always offer to delete the pictures I've taken of stuff if they complain, so, I got out of my truck and walked up to him with a broad smile and a wave (gotta try to disarm them if they're angry). So I told him I was taking pictured of the Camino Real, and once I showed him the markers, he and his wife REALLY opened up. They let me take pictures, with the promise that I wouldn't post them. Turned out this house was one of the original "Old 300" families that had slowly been added onto over the years (but kept in the same style of the original house). The old house is now just a living room connected to the rest of the house. Amazing. After exchanging EMails, I moved on to San Antonio.
While passing Comanche Lookout on Nacogdoches and Topperwein (I couldn't get a good picture of it, since we were now in San Antonio, and Nacogdoches Road here is actually a major thoroughfare), I caught site of the old tower on top of the lookout. Comanche Lookout is the fourth highest point in Bexar County, and the highest spot in the city. Legend has it that San Antonians in the 1800s built that tower to keepo an eye out in Indian raiding parties. From up there, you can see for miles around...
...the reality is the tower was built in the 1930s as part of a big mansion. The builder died after making the tower and nothing else was ever built up there. Still, let's let the kids have their legends. ;) Next chance I get, I'll go up there, and try to get a full 360 panoramic picture.
I hit the end of the Drivable Camino (Nacogdoches peters out in Alamo Heights, the trail goes through subdivisions that have obliterated the original roadway), but still had one marker to go...and what was between me and that marker?
Sure enough, it was The Burger Boy. And the original design of the building they used to have all over town. I walked in, and when they asked for my order....I didn't know what to get? I mean...it's been 20 some odd years...and the menu was totally unfamiliar...thankfully the guy behind the counter was helpful and mentioned the specials (aka a burger, fries and drink). The Workin' Man Special was a double Burger Boy, Large Fries and Large Drink. The Bates Special, which I got, was just a Burger Boy, small fries and drink (in the same oversized tub looking cups). After I mentioned that I remembered the old Whopper Burger, I got a free upgrade to a large drink and a hat. :D While my stuff was cooking, we started talking and the manager mentioned that he was once a big fan of Whopper Burger and Big Boy and eventually just never left, becoming the manager of this store after so many years.
It doesn't look like this one'll go away anytime soon. And it's location is probably why it never went away with the rest of them. St. Mary's is full of clubs, music stores, and artist shops and galleries. And not a single fast food place on the strip. You want something to eat without driving down the street to overpriced cuisine, here you are.
From there, we had one last go to the last marker I'd hit tonight, at San Pedro springs. I got pictures of the markers, but didn't stay long due to the wierdness of some of the people there. I keep forgeting that San Antonio is not a big fan of my kind, and that's why I left the town to begin with. Ah, well. I got what I wanted....
I turned around, and came home...
Thursday
You might remember a few days ago, I asked "What International Foods SHould I Get?" I got a few answers here and there, wrote them down, and went to Austin. In the spirit of http://www.seanbaby.com/personal/americarules.htm I decided I would go out and try something different (although I'd be a bit more sane about it, as I would not try to cook potpourri). Buying only things I'd never had before, and hoping to high heaven some of it would be palatable, I hit the international stores...but only after a final "This may be the last real food you eat this week" dinner with Dean at a rather bland Mexican place.
My truck got a little present from the Chevrolet Company. After EMailing them that my truck had hit 200k miles, they sent me a neat little sticker for the truck. Too bad it's a Cheyenne, and not a Silverado.
Brak is, of course, unimpressed.
I don't have the list right with me, but some things I got involved lots of curry dishes, strange and inticing ramens, british meat pies, chutneys of mysteries and a few things I knew I could enjoy like frozen samosas, pappadums, indomie ramen and bread.
Unfortunately, buying these groceries, I forgot, would be expensive, and I'd better like all this stuff, cause it's all I gots till the 18th. :)
I havne't really been all that dissapointed, though. I've had a Don Bowl of some kind of shredded pork thing, and it was actually really really good. The Shepherd pie I just had for lunch was REALLY REALLY REALLY good. I plan to look at ecipes for making those. :9
I have some more money coming in soon, which at least means I can buy normal groceries in a few days...until then...bon appetite!
Back in the day, there was a chain of burger joints that my mother loved with all her might, called Whopper Burger. She passed this love on to her children, who enjoyed the flat wide burgers, the sodas served in oversized styrofoam tub-like cups, and the french fries that came right out of your school lunchroom.
Then came the Empire. In the late 1970s, Burger King decided to move into the San Antonio area, only to find there already was a Whopper Burger being served in town. They sued, claiming trademark infringement. It didn't take long before BK realized Whopper Burger had been around longer than they had, and they'd lose. So they made a settlement with Whopper Burger - BK wouldn't invade their territory as long as Whopper Burger didn't get outside of a two county area of San Antonio. All was well...
...until 1984. Whopper Burger had opened up stores all over town, but was losing money hand over fries. They needed a quick bailout...and who came calling with a solution? Burger King. They bought most of the Whopper Burger stores for a tidy sum, and forced Whopper Burger to change their name to Burger Boy.
There were a few Burger Boys left. There was one just south of Crossroads/Wonderland Mall for a good number of years. There was another on Fredericksburg Road. But eventually, they all but dissapeared into the dustbin of San Antonio history and Corporate Globalization.
A few weeks ago...
I was scanning the San Antonio news, as I often do when I'm feeling homesick for San Antonio, when a headline catches my eye: "Blue Plate Award: Burger Boy." HUH WHA?!
WOAI (nee KMOL) does this "Kitchen Cops" thing where they do surprise inspections of restaurants, and grade them based on cleanliness. They hit this place and found it hit code 100% and gave them an award for it. But I didn't care about the cleanliness...they awarded it to a BURGER BOY.
I did a search online to see if this was one of the fabled San Antonio Burger Boy chain, and I couldn't find any information at all on it. Just an address - 2323 North St Mary's. After digging through enough search engines to shake a stick at, I finally came across one mention of that Burger Boy - http://calendar.sacurrent.com/restaurants/place.asp?id=2144 . With a picture! So I look carefully, and the fries are the same Whopper Burger fries...the burger is a burger...the color scheme is orange on white, same as the old Whopper Burger (and confusingly close Whataburger)...but then, in the background on a menu, was the barely legible mascot of Whopper Burger - The Burger Boy himself.
This was the last of the Whopper Burgers. The pilgrimage would begin on my first full weekend off....
Thursday
I began my trip by heading back to the Camino Real to take pictures of spots where the road was "off-road." I'd brought along my laptop this time, and used saved satellite pictures to match up what I saw from the air with what was on the ground. Sure enough, I found the old roadway. It had some scrub, but was still generally clear - not bad for a road that prolly hadn't been used in over a 150 years.
Along the way to New Braunsfels, I was taking pics of the Camino Markers and making note of where they were for a website I plan to put together about it. The one above is the first marker, just on the other side of the Comal county line. There were several I was trying to find, since I hadn't seen them in a long time, and the markers, despite being several hundred pounds, often get stolen or moved.
Two markers, in particular, I couldn't find the last few times I'd been there. One north of New Braunsfels, between the McCoy's Builders Factory and the Wal Mart Distribution Center, the other south of New Braunfels in Solms. The north one I almost gave up on...I'd swept the area four times looking for it, on a one way frontage road for the freeway. When I'd pass the spot it should have been, I'd end up having to make a gigantic turnaround. After the fourth time, I'd pretty much given up hope...then I remembered - I had my camera with pictures of the OTHER monuments.
I walked into the McCoy's office and showed pictures of it to the receptionist there, who said she'd seen it just last month, up the road. So it was still there. A few feet up the road, I asked a guy who was living in a mobile home park there. After getting the typical response I would have expected from a mobile home resident at home drinking beers without a shirt at 2PM ("That's a purty camera you got there...you from around here?") I moved on...and I found the poor thing.
It's set in a ditch below road level, so you can't really see it from the road easily. It's also totally surrounded by high grass taller than itself. TO be honest, I only caught it because someone put a beer bottle on it. I cleared away some of the grass in front, got my picture, marked it's position, and went on my way. I may go out there with some hedge clippers and clear it away a bit...it's not that far from here.
Going into New Braunsfels, I traced the Camino down a few new roads that matched up better with the ground notes taken in 1915, and took a walk up the Faust Street Bridge (an old abandonned bridge that was recently renovated into a pedestrian bridge) over the Guadalupe River. I'll post a panoramic picture, when I get back home.
Moving through New Braunsfels (I'd seen most everything I wanted to last week), I hit Solms, and combed the area for the 2nd lost marker. And I combed and combed and combed, using the one picture I had as a reference taken several years ago. I still couldn't find it. I asked residents who had no idea what I was talking about even with pictures. And old man sitting on his porch watching construction talked to me for a while about the Camino and said he hadn't seen that marker in a long time. I began to drive away from Solms on the Camino, when I found it - it was on the other side of Solms, not in Solms, and was cordoned off with some plastic construction gating, as they were repaving the road. With the location marked, I kept going into town.
San Antonio gets all its water from the Edwards Underground Aquifer. Water in there is INCREDIBLY pure, to the point that San Antonio pulls the water from there with only some very very very minor filtering. Doesn't need it as the water spends several years slowly dripping through the limestone layers, which filters the water for them. I've had water direct from the aquifer, because I know where there's a pump....
This pump is in an old town called Comaltown, at the junction of FM 482 and Nacogdoches Road. In it's heyday, this was a major crossroads. The main Postal Road from San Antonio came through here, and joined with the Camino Real at this spot. The buildings here are vintage 1800s ghost town, like you see in the cartoons.
The well isnt' from that time, but seems to be a lot newer, maybe the 50s or so. The concrete is still good, the pump is a bit rusty but taken care of. When I first found it, it was hidden deep against a fenceline near a cemetary, completely grown over. As you can see, someone cleared the area, and the pump seems to get used now. Before, I'd have to pump it a good number of times to get clear water (pieces of rust would flow out with the water the first few pumps) but this time it pumped clear on the first go. Someone else is using this pump for water now. :)
Continuing down the Camino, I found an old crumbling German Rock Wall. Germans settled Central Texas fairly early, being the first non-Indian inhabitants of the area (Mexicans stayed mostly in San Antonio, and then settled the towns the Germans created), and when they staked out their lands, they'd just pile rocks into a wall. No mortar, no real support, other than "The right rocks, in the right spots." There are a few around that haven't collapsed (After almost 175 years, I find that amazing). I was noticing the fence line when I came across a portion that wasn't in ruins at all (in fact it was really well put together, connected to an very well kept up, but obviously old stone house. I pulled around and got some pics (that won't be posted as per the owner's request).
So I was taking these pics, when someone comes out of the house, and confronts me - "What's the occasion, son?!" Texans are pretty fierce about property rights, and I always offer to delete the pictures I've taken of stuff if they complain, so, I got out of my truck and walked up to him with a broad smile and a wave (gotta try to disarm them if they're angry). So I told him I was taking pictured of the Camino Real, and once I showed him the markers, he and his wife REALLY opened up. They let me take pictures, with the promise that I wouldn't post them. Turned out this house was one of the original "Old 300" families that had slowly been added onto over the years (but kept in the same style of the original house). The old house is now just a living room connected to the rest of the house. Amazing. After exchanging EMails, I moved on to San Antonio.
While passing Comanche Lookout on Nacogdoches and Topperwein (I couldn't get a good picture of it, since we were now in San Antonio, and Nacogdoches Road here is actually a major thoroughfare), I caught site of the old tower on top of the lookout. Comanche Lookout is the fourth highest point in Bexar County, and the highest spot in the city. Legend has it that San Antonians in the 1800s built that tower to keepo an eye out in Indian raiding parties. From up there, you can see for miles around...
...the reality is the tower was built in the 1930s as part of a big mansion. The builder died after making the tower and nothing else was ever built up there. Still, let's let the kids have their legends. ;) Next chance I get, I'll go up there, and try to get a full 360 panoramic picture.
I hit the end of the Drivable Camino (Nacogdoches peters out in Alamo Heights, the trail goes through subdivisions that have obliterated the original roadway), but still had one marker to go...and what was between me and that marker?
Sure enough, it was The Burger Boy. And the original design of the building they used to have all over town. I walked in, and when they asked for my order....I didn't know what to get? I mean...it's been 20 some odd years...and the menu was totally unfamiliar...thankfully the guy behind the counter was helpful and mentioned the specials (aka a burger, fries and drink). The Workin' Man Special was a double Burger Boy, Large Fries and Large Drink. The Bates Special, which I got, was just a Burger Boy, small fries and drink (in the same oversized tub looking cups). After I mentioned that I remembered the old Whopper Burger, I got a free upgrade to a large drink and a hat. :D While my stuff was cooking, we started talking and the manager mentioned that he was once a big fan of Whopper Burger and Big Boy and eventually just never left, becoming the manager of this store after so many years.
It doesn't look like this one'll go away anytime soon. And it's location is probably why it never went away with the rest of them. St. Mary's is full of clubs, music stores, and artist shops and galleries. And not a single fast food place on the strip. You want something to eat without driving down the street to overpriced cuisine, here you are.
From there, we had one last go to the last marker I'd hit tonight, at San Pedro springs. I got pictures of the markers, but didn't stay long due to the wierdness of some of the people there. I keep forgeting that San Antonio is not a big fan of my kind, and that's why I left the town to begin with. Ah, well. I got what I wanted....
I turned around, and came home...
Thursday
You might remember a few days ago, I asked "What International Foods SHould I Get?" I got a few answers here and there, wrote them down, and went to Austin. In the spirit of http://www.seanbaby.com/personal/americarules.htm I decided I would go out and try something different (although I'd be a bit more sane about it, as I would not try to cook potpourri). Buying only things I'd never had before, and hoping to high heaven some of it would be palatable, I hit the international stores...but only after a final "This may be the last real food you eat this week" dinner with Dean at a rather bland Mexican place.
My truck got a little present from the Chevrolet Company. After EMailing them that my truck had hit 200k miles, they sent me a neat little sticker for the truck. Too bad it's a Cheyenne, and not a Silverado.
Brak is, of course, unimpressed.
I don't have the list right with me, but some things I got involved lots of curry dishes, strange and inticing ramens, british meat pies, chutneys of mysteries and a few things I knew I could enjoy like frozen samosas, pappadums, indomie ramen and bread.
Unfortunately, buying these groceries, I forgot, would be expensive, and I'd better like all this stuff, cause it's all I gots till the 18th. :)
I havne't really been all that dissapointed, though. I've had a Don Bowl of some kind of shredded pork thing, and it was actually really really good. The Shepherd pie I just had for lunch was REALLY REALLY REALLY good. I plan to look at ecipes for making those. :9
I have some more money coming in soon, which at least means I can buy normal groceries in a few days...until then...bon appetite!
