travel journal

Coastal breeze and craft beer: How we escaped the Texas heat with a weekend away — in LA

Rooftop bar at Hotel Erwin in Venice gearing up for sunset

As Bob Dylan said, it doesn’t take a weather man to know which way the wind blows. It also doesn’t take a weatherman to know where to go when it's a "mild" 90 degrees in Austin.

The City of Angels

When we walked out of LAX airport and it was in the low 60s, it was a pretty nice change.

Our destination was San Diego, but not before we got to do a little restaurant tour in LA courtesy of Ryan Abboushi, who grew up in Houston, went to college at USC and is now climbing the ladder at CAA (Creative Artists Agency) — one of the world’s leading talent agencies, built on repping stars like George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, David Beckham, Alec Baldwin… you get the picture.

We’ve got our favorite restaurants in LA, but Ryan was definitely six months ahead of us on the “restaurant of the moment” curve. He said that if we could possibly get into a restaurant in Venice Beach called Gjelina with only a day or two notice, that would be a coup. With a couple of round-about connections, we worked our way in.

Well, it was way-crowded when we arrived. And, of course, all of the doors were open to the outside. It had warmed all the way up to 70 degrees, but with a cool breeze coming off the ocean.

So even if you picked that restaurant up and moved it to Texas, it wouldn’t be the same because of the weather. It also wouldn’t be the same because we seem to expect a different experience in a place where we will likely spend a lot of money; not distressed wood walls, brick floors, Edison-bulb lights and heavy steel doors in a 2,500-square-foot space. The food was excellent as advertised, but not fancy or a big production at all — pizzas, lots of locally sourced vegetables.

But context is everything, and it benefits from being on the bohemian-hipster Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice.

Everyone has been to those faux hometown shopping centers where they duplicate Main Street and have lots of up-market chains with apartments above — all nice, but all the same around the country. This is not Abbott Kinney. There are no chains anywhere, just lots of old houses turned into shops or new modern, white buildings filled with shops and restaurants.

I read somewhere that there are more medical marijuana clinics in LA than there are Starbucks. On Abbott Kinney there were no Starbucks, but lots of places with names like The Farmacy Global Organic Medicine. Far out.

Beach Cities

On the way to San Diego we diverted to Manhattan Beach, a once-sleepy beach town that is now brimming with the young and upwardly mobile, at least judging by the number of new restaurants, bars and shops there. And the trend toward locally brewed and other trendy craft beers has totally wiped out the wine bars.

BrewCo, about a block off the beach, had 40 on tap and another 40 available — good stuff with great names like Arrogant Bastard and Stone Ruination from Escondido, Calif., and Karl Strauss' Red Trolley from San Diego.

San Diego

Once we got to San Diego I remembered why I like it so much. It’s not just the default stuff — like the World’s Best Zoo, Balboa Park, the Bay and all those family-friendly destinations — but the truly one-of-a-kind Hotel del Coronado. It’s more than 120 years old, has an illustrious history (11 presidential stays plus Thomas Edison, Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh; the setting for the movie Some Like It Hot; and on and on) but not many places in California have a setting right on the beach.

And it may be old, but it just went through a $100-million renovation, which made it much nicer. History with luxury. To get to the hotel, you cross the Coronado Bridge to Coronado Peninsula — itself a pristine destination for shops, restaurants and homes.

San Diego used to be fairly conservative due to the large military presence, and I’m sure much of it still is, but pockets of it have become very boho indeed. In fact, I felt as if I were back on Abbott Kinney at one restaurant in downtown San Diego – Craft & Commerce. I’m not sure it can fulfill the commerce part (too small and non-mainstream) but it had the craft part down well — all the waiters were wearing berets, suspenders and plaid shirts and tattoos were not only allowed, but apparently part of company policy.

Not to leave out the cultural stuff, we caught an exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Art, From El Greco to Dalí: Great Spanish Masters from the Pérez Simón Collection. And as if the city hadn’t come far enough, this truly impressive show’s only stop in the United States after its premiere in Paris was San Diego — not New York or LA, Chicago or Houston.

Chalk another one up for the beach town down the coast from LA.

Manhatten Beach pier

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Red Light

San Antonio leads Texas on ending horse-drawn carriage rides by 2030

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Horses will no longer pull carriages on the streets of downtown San Antonio.

San Antonio has pulled off something that the rest of Texas has yet to do, but it didn't come without some contentious conversations. City Council has unanimously voted (with one abstention) to phase out the use of horse-drawn carriages over the next five years. That means by January 1, 2030, there will be none on the streets at all; instead, there will be electric carriages.

These plans have been in the making since 2022 — if not always at the same level of intensity — when District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and District 3 Councilmember Phyllis Viagran wrote up some concerns about the horses' wellbeing. A special session at the end of October 2024 hinted to San Antonians that the end for this practice was neigh — sorry, nigh — and the final vote was made on December 12. In addition to accepting the plan, it extended its timeframe by two years.

The initial proposal included worries about the horses' exposure to traffic and pollution, as well how their presence might exacerbate those issues for the environment at large by slowing traffic. It also raised concerns about the effects of standing or walking on hard surfaces for too long, or spending time in extreme weather.

At the December 12 meeting, San Antonians gave impassioned speeches about animal welfare — both to call attention to the need for better conditions and to defend the reputations and jobs of current horse drivers — but it wasn't the first time the council heard from the public about the issue.

In a prior city survey, 50,476 respondents weighed in. Of those respondents, 51.98 percent said they liked the idea to "Transition horse-drawn carriages to electric carriages and pedicabs and ban horse drawn carriages completely." There were alternative solutions listed, but respondents were less drawn to them.

A cultural divide emerged in the data and continued in the December meeting: some people avoided the carriages because they worried about the treatment of the horses, while others enjoyed them because of their historical echoes and living legacy. Many speakers in favor of the plan used this to form their argument, raising questions about history versus progress.

More tangible objections to the plan hinged on the businesses — specifically five companies — and jobs that would be lost, which was the main factor behind extending the adjustment period.

Discussions about the particulars of the electric vehicles are still to come, as confirmed in the discussion near the end of the meeting. Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez addressed concerns about what would happen to the horses, mentioning the Brady Hunter Foundation as a future partner in finding them rescue homes.

Some council members also brought up rhetorical questions about animal exploitation by groups like Sea World, the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, military and police forces, and even various groups in the Fiesta parade, although these did not come with a formal motion to pick the issues up.

This decision could have a ripple effect on other Texas cities. Dallas has recently considered a similar ban, but it appears to have stalled; Austin's attempts at a ban have been unsuccessful, but according to the Austin-American Statesman, only one operator is permitted to bring horses downtown. She declines to do so because the long hours are unfair to her and the horses. Houston does have horse-drawn carriages, and there seems to be little conversation about banning them.

Cities like Chicago and Salt Lake City have led the charge in the United States with some of the most prominent successful bans. Other cities around the world with bans include Brussels and Guadalajara, which both switched to electric models. Bans that have been around for years, like Guadalajara's and Prague's, still aren't out of the woods — people are still pushing back on the decision, so it sounds like San Antonio still has much work cut out for it.

animals downtown civic issues