Anyone live in/around Del Rio, San Antonio, or Austin?

skimanjim

skimanjim

Filing Flight Plan
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Display name:
Jim Baker
So... I am moving to Del Rio this August and im wondering if anyone has any info on life in that area... primarily where to fly and what i can fly there, where to eat, where to party, etc.... anyone in the know?
 
Im told the real parties are in Cuidad Acuna, you need to bring watersports equipment for Amistad, and yes you will need a plane, mainly to get away....to Austin and S'antone as you note! Brush up on your spanish!
 
I often hang out in Fredericksburg (T82), which is west of San Antonio, a great town with good food and the Museum of the Pacific War, a must-see for anyone. One also finds the Hangar Hotel, on the field, as well as the Airport Diner, a great meal (weekends breakfast and lunch, check hours otherwise).

Kerrville, close by (KERV) is home to the Mooney Airplane Company.

===

Edit: One presumes you are moving from the USAFA to Laughlin- if the opportunity presents for you to come to Fredericksburg at the same time my fam is down there, I really want you to meet my son, Tommy (12), who is bound and determined that he is going to USAFA. Would love for him to hear from the "real deal." There's a Dr. Pepper and burger (or maybe something better) in it for you.

/s/ Spike
 
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I live in San Antone, at least for now.

You'll want a plane, and you'll want good locks. Especially close to the border where planes occasionally "disappear".

Spike's right about Fredericksburg, great town. Good BBQ in Bandera, cowboy capital of the world, and home to Busbees BBQ. Austin is a lot of fun. Very GA unfriendly, though. As a university town, lots going on and a lot of eclectic stuff.

Then you have the Texas coast. The Gulf is like a giant toilet bowl (or so says a friend of mine), meaning that some of the dirt and trash from Houston and east finds its way around toward Corpus. Good shrimp, though, and some excellent birding along the coast.

San Antone is a party town, what with the Riverwalk and the turistas. There doesn't seem to be much in Del Rio... I'd guess you'd be traveling.

Destinations by plane: Mustang Beach, Burnet (airshow each spring), Fredericksburg, Houston, Galveston (walk to the air museum and Moody Gardens), and there's also a little private ranch strip at Kingsbury that has a fun little museum where they're restoring early vintage planes. You'll have to call, because I heard rumor that Kingsbury is only open to taildraggers. http://www.vintageaviation.org/aerodrome/index.html
 
wsuffa said:
and there's also a little private ranch strip at Kingsbury that has a fun little museum where they're restoring early vintage planes. You'll have to call, because I heard rumor that Kingsbury is only open to taildraggers. http://www.vintageaviation.org/aerodrome/index.html
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Bill, that looks like just the kind of airstrip I was hoping to visit. :yes: I just added it to my route. Thanks. :)
 
Diana said:
Bill, that looks like just the kind of airstrip I was hoping to visit. :yes: I just added it to my route. Thanks. :)
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If you happen down this way to Kingsbury, and I'm still here, please let me know...
 
wsuffa said:
I live in San Antone, at least for now.

You'll want a plane, and you'll want good locks. Especially close to the border where planes occasionally "disappear".



So I take it a fast plane would be good, and maybe something rather difficult to fly, so that if someone steals it, they will hurt themselves i the process????

What do you do in San Antone?
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So I take it a fast plane would be good, and maybe something rather difficult to fly, so that if someone steals it, they will hurt themselves i the process????
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Well, it's something like 100 miles to much of anywhere from Del Rio. So, it only needs to be so fast...

The folks that steal them don't much care. The planes go across the border to transport drugs. Lots of violence associated therewith (see if you can find some news stories about Nuevo Laredo).

What do you do in San Antone?
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Right now, I'm doing M&A work for a DC-based company. I will most likely be moving to the DC area in the not too distant future. Prior to that, I was doing capital investment and M&A work for a major San Antonio-based company.
 
wsuffa said:
Austin is a lot of fun. Very GA unfriendly, though. As a university town, lots going on and a lot of eclectic stuff.
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That's no lie (the GA unfriendly stuff). It amazes me at the lack of aviation stuff around here. I did notice the local EAA chapter has finally updated the website and seems to post about regular meetings now. I'm going to have to try again to get in touch and see about attending a meeting.

As far as eating and partying, Austin has plenty of both! 6th street is the "party central" around here, but it's expanding to the warehouse district (2nd-4th streets) as well other parts of the city. Always some festival going on somewhere in town. (It must be time for the annual motorcycle rally..they are everywhere!)

Too many places to eat to list, and I don't want to start the old "best barbecue" discussion again :D , but suffice it to say it's all good around here and plenty of choices to be made.

If you like live music, this is the place to be in Texas. Two major music festivals every year, with live music every night of the week all over the city. There's a pretty good events calendar on the visitors bureau website (http://www.austintexas.org/).
 
wsuffa said:
Salt Lick...
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It is very, very hard to argue with this.

But Cooper's comes close.

The best part is, the effort of trying both and comparing is very rewarding.
 
For flying destinations there's also GTU (Georgetown - north of Austin). Good GA field, despite lots of traffic. It's getting a class D tower Real Soon Now. (There are anti-smash lights on the top of the tower now. The airport website http://www.georgetown.org/departments/airport/ shows July 1 as the operational date)

While the bbq isn't great in town, there is some (Duke's) and there's also the Monument Cafe http://www.themonumentcafe.com/ - best home cooking in the south. You can get biscuits and gravy, chicken fried steaks, and the pancakes are about 12" across. They also do "healthy" food too: grilled fish, quiche, dinner salads. The prices are cheap, but the food itself is top notch. Everybody in town eats there, and I know folks that drive up from San Antonio and down from Dallas just to eat there.
 
So get an airplane that cant actually carry anything besides a person? Sounds like kind of a dump as far as anything flying goes.
 
If you can get away for a scouting trip the end of May, you could probably get the local googe from some of the pilots at

www.swrfi.org
 
Steve said:
If you can get away for a scouting trip the end of May, you could probably get the local googe from some of the pilots at

www.swrfi.org
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You gonna be there, Steve? That's near my 'hood (southern outpost).
 
I'm signed up to volunteer.

They still haven't posted their pilot pre-registration form for 2007 yet, though.

Wanna split a motel room for the weekend?

SCCutler said:
You gonna be there, Steve? That's near my 'hood (southern outpost).
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