What passtime activities/opportunities in San Antonio do you consider to be exciting?

[fishfister]

[quote=Missionsfan02;1384896]

Originally Posted by fishfister

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Don't miss Rudy's BBQ. RUDY'S HAS THE BEST BAR B QUE!!!!!! WAY BETTER THEN BILL MILLER'S!!!!!!
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Bill WHO?!! HAHA!!

[infinity & beyond]

Getting together with friends for happy hour, working out, and traveling - outside of San Antonio.

[majormadmax]

I find a lot of things exciting about San Antonio, which is the reason why we decided to move here (the first time we actually had a say in the matter, after nearly 25 years in the USAF!). But much like almost everywhere else I have lived, I learned that sometimes you have to put a little effort into finding the excitement!

For me that means hiking with my kids in one of the many great parks (city and state) nearby. Or visiting the missions (to include the Alamo). I find the RiverWalk to be very exciting...yes, it is "touristy" but I still love going there. And thanks to this forum, I now have a list of spooky places in San Antonio that we are going to check out this coming weekend! If you have never experienced the haunted train tracks, then you don't know what excitement is!

Go to the Snake Farm (broken link) north on IH-35 (just south of New Braunfels) and hold the python Apollo. Yeah, the place is a pit (no pun intended) but the new owners are trying to make it better and anyway it is still exciting. Or try the S.A. Botanical Gardens, maybe not "exciting" in an adventurous sense but still cool to visit.

A good idea is to go to the About.com page for San Antonio and sign up for Kori Ellis' weekly email notices. Lots of great info on coming events. And if you can't find ways to have fun in this city, maybe it's not the city that is the problem!!

Cheers! M2

[BucFan]

Maj, curious where you decided to retire in SA. Military here (20 yrs). Two years to retirement. Looking for a place to live - from Tampa, but housing costs are inflated along with hurricane insurance being outrageous. Can't figure out where in SA to live, if I retired there. NW side off I-10/medical district is where I'm most familiar with-

[majormadmax]

We were stationed here from 99-02, coming from Germany and leaving to go to Belgium. At first I didn't like it too much here, but after having kids and getting to know the place better, we decided it was probably the best place for our post-military lives. I was an intel officer so the only other place that would have been viable was Washington, D.C. and as much as I love the area up there, house prices and the congestion would keep me away!

So, reasons for coming here...

1) Housing dollar - Although not as good as it used to be, you can still get a very nice new house here at prices that cannot be touched anywhere else of a city this size. We got a 3400 sq ft new home for $240K that had about $40K in upgrades to it. The same house in Florida would’ve probably cost an additional $100K.

2) Cost of Living - With a mean salary of around $27K/yr, prices in San Antonio mean that you can live quite comfortably on a decent salary and with retirement. As such, with my contractor salary, retirement and VA disability we can afford to live well without my wife working. As I have younger children (ages 7 and 10), we prefer that she stays home and gets involved at our boys’ school.

3) Opportunity – As I said, I was an intel officer in the USAF, and having the security clearances made it easy to find a job with the DoD in San Antonio. Government Service jobs are not as easy to come by, but there are lot of contract opportunities out there and I had a job lined up before I went on terminal leave. Needless to say, that eased a lot of my anxiety when it came time to hang up the uniform. And other career fields, especially medical services, are abundant in this town.

4) Military Town - With three major military bases, and a large military community, San Antonio is very pro-military and many places offer discounts, which most times are extended to retirees as well.

5) Climate - My wife can't stand the cold, but I tend to like it. However, after leaving here and living in Belgium for three years, while scraping several inches of snow and ice off my car I often would wonder why we left Texas! Given the choice, we prefer to live somewhere warm and vacation in places where it gets cold, instead of the other way around.

6) It's Texas! - This is truly a whole different world. We love the culture, the history and the geography in general. We are on the foot of the Texas Hill Country, and it is great for motorcycle or Jeep rides. Plus there is a ton to do here in town and it is very family oriented. And although most people think it is a tourist trap, we really like the RiverWalk and downtown San Antonio.

I am a military brat and my father retired in Jacksonville, a Navy town for the most part. I loved it as a kid, but the old adage about never being able to go home again holds true for me. Plus, as much as I initially hated San Antonio (I went to basic training here in 1981, and returned for AFROTC training in 1987, so I obviously didn't have the best experiences in my prior visits), after living here we realized what a great place it is. The NISD schools are wonderful, we have a 7-yr-old who is autistic and who is getting great services from his school, which is only an 8-minute walk from our house! I also served on the NISD Citizen's Bond Committee and I can tell you the NISD staff is a great group of dedicated educators.

Bottom line, we felt there were a lot of great things about this town that convinced us it was the place we wanted to retire to. It was odd after nearly 25 years in the military that we had the choice of where we were going, and stay there as long as we wanted. We may move one day down the road, I would like to go back to Europe given the chance; but for now we are very happy with out choice to come here and I would recommend it to anyone who is leaving the military.

Best of luck with your final two years, the transition will cause anxiety but you will get through it if you plan right.

Cheers! M2

[Nostalgic]

~RV shows and Home and Garden shows put on at the Alamodome and Convention Center.

~Fireworks on New Years Eve from Tower.

~Fiesta (Flambeau Parade)

[BucFan]

MajorMadMax,

Thanks for the taking the time to post your last message. I'm currently on my fourth tour in Germany and really enjoy living here. I've often thought about living over here and finding a gov't healthcare job. You've made some excellent points about living in SA. Once again, thanks for taking the time.