Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Draining the river

It's that time of year again: the annual draining of the San Antonio River. They do this at the first of each year to clean up a little, and visitors to the River Walk should expect to see a little less atmosphere than they might be used to (from KSAT-TV).

City officials said the first week of the new year is the best time to conduct the cleanup.

"There's never really a good time to take down the river," said Paula Stallcup, director of downtown operations. "But certainly, we work around the existing conventions and all of our visitors. This is the time to do it because this is the slowest time, if there is a slow time for San Antonio."

Up next, the annual Mud Festival, complete with a ball, a parade, a coronation, a pub crawl, and an arts and crafts show. All to celebrate the draining of the river.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, San Antonians will hold a party for just about any reason.

2 comments:

AlanDP said...

I'd like to see a list of all the stuff they find when they drain it. Like, exactly how many shopping carts and so forth.

Albatross said...

I haven't seen anything that approaches a comprehensive list, but they will typically pull up such things as chairs, cutlery, bottles, cameras, cell phones, etc. The kinds of things you'd expect to fall in a river that is home to restaurants and tourists.

If I see a report of anything odd found in the river, I will be sure to post it here.