Gingerfied Motorcourts & Playing the Coquette

At the risk of poaching a fish to death, just let me mention that when Suzanne and I walked out of our rooms on Monday we were both wearing the exact same style shirt and skirt. Enough on the simpatico thing but are you all catching on to the Suzanne-isms I've been throwing in lately? 

A day of tea-ing is hard on a girl so once we got ourselves settled in at the Austin Hotel we celebrated an action packed and successful day with some of Suzanne's friends and a bottle of champagne.

I'm thinking that some of my Florida and St. Louis family and friends would be all about this stretch of Congress street. From the late 30's til the 60's it was a booming, happening locale lined with "ultramodern motorcourts". Congress was the road to travel between San Antonio and Austin.

But as new highways so often tend to do, the opening of I35 began a downhill slide for Congress and by the 1960's places such as the Austin Hotel were no more than seedy flop houses where prostitutes brought cheap tricks. Suzanne wants you all to know we're not talking about the band either. 

Thanks to renovations up into the several million dollar range these hotels, since 2000, have been "gingerfied".  And all are within walking distance of the iconic Continental Club, the premier club for live music in this part of the world.

We made a short stop at the courtyard of the San Jose Hotel, the "anti-boutique boutique hotel" on Congress, where I had a Victorian Lemonade. Can you imagine me ordering such a thing? It was the most unusual beverage I've imbibed in quite some time: a lemon-lavender syrup mixed with iced Blanc De Blanc wine. Wild and wonderful yet so gracious and seemingly from another era.

Prostitution seems to be a theme on the periphery of my life as of late. I'm still not ready to divulge too much on that but I will tell you it's possible I'm soon to play the part of a woman in such a profession. No, not in real life! 

I was to be from California with this project but I'm enjoying Texas so much, I think I must switch locales. As completely enchanted with Congress street as I am, this girl can't yet bring herself to do seedy, not even historical seedy. I'd much prefer to be one of the few demimondaines of the late 1800's allowed into the private men's club of the elegant Driskill Hotel over on Bravos Street.

You'll enjoy an interesting few moments if you've time to check out these web sites:

www.sanjosehotel.com
www.continentalclub.com