San Antonio

Apr. 27-May 2

The trip there:

The weather forecast called for really miserable weather through OK and northern TX for the days I would be driving, so I decided on a little detour... Instead, I took I-55 south through Mississippi, then took a right on I-12 which leads to I-10. I stayed the night at Jackson, MS along the way, where the lady watching the place said "Wow, you're traveling alone... Doesn't that make you kinda scared?" Um, well, no, not till you said that... But I made it...

Western LA was pretty cool. I'll put up a few poor pics as soon as I move my page... There are these huge stretches of road that are essentially just one long bridge. Guess you have to do that sort of thing to get over swamps. It's just odd to look down out the window and see ppl fishing.

Two poor shots of the Mississippi River

That's the tops of trees, coming out of the swamp, at freeway level

Anyways, the weather again decided to be unpleasant around Houston, and I sat out a downpour in a Burger King for about an hour. I finally got to San Antonio around 10PM on Monday night.

The Visit

Tuesday: I decided to be pretty lazy. I got up for lunch at Chesterburgers, then spent the afternoon catching up on email and managing my fantasy teams. We fried up some pork chops for dinner , and then went out to see "10 things I hate about you", which I give about 1.5 stars out of 5.

Wednesday: Di and I went to lunch at a cool Chinese restaurant, and then I decided to play lump on the couch till they got back from work. We went to dinner at an Italian place with really good pizza, and on the way home we rented Reality Bites (2.5 of 5)

Thursday: Di left for Houston, and I actually got out of the apartment during the day. I went down to the Alamo, which is sort of interesting, except that hearing the true story of it sort of made me feel like I'd been lied to. I always thought that the battle really accomplished something, that they sacrificed themselves for something noble. As it turns out, they were just being stupid and stubborn. (Imagine that from a bunch of Texans!) Their general had ordered them to retreat, but the fort commander Travis decided to ignore the orders and try to hold the place. Sure, they slowed the Mexican advance for 13 days (showing that Santa Ana apparantly decided to prove himself even dumber than the Texans... Two words, buddy- GO AROUND!) but they all died in the process. I can't help but think that 200 more live ppl would've helped the army more than 13 days.

The gift shop area...

And the shrine. Has a museum inside

Anyways, next I went over to the Alamodome. That thing is just an eyesore. The rest of SA was pretty nice, but the Alamodome was just god awful. It's apparently not very functional either, since it's a football stadium in a city that doesn't have a football team.

Then I went up in the Tower of the Americas. Nice, but doesn't Seattle have one of these things too? It was cool, tho... 750 feet tall, and as you can see, I took lots of pics from the top. Nifty.

Straight down

The Alamodome from up high

2 downtown shots

That evening, KT and I went to see a San Antonio Missions game. They're the AA affiliate of the Dodgers, and it was... Different. I'd never been to a minor league game before, but they seemed to feel the need to provide lots of entertainment between innings. Ppls names were called, and they ended up having lots of contests, like beach ball dribbling races. Two things stood out... One was the sumo football game. Two teenagers got to suit up in sumo suits. One would get a football, and try to run past the other. He'd get tackled, then the other would get the ball. There was one pretty funny open field tackle...

Two shots of the stadium.

The second was Henry the Puffy Taco. He's a mascot for the Missions, and in the middle of the 6th of every home game, he challenges a small child to a race around the bases. Now, you'd think that starting at 2nd would give Henry sufficient advantage over someone half his size, but those little kids are surprising fast. About 20 feet from home, the little girl caught Henry and slammed him to the ground, lowering Henry's lifetime record to 0-476.

Anyways, the Missions won the game over Wichita, 5-2, I think. I wasn't paying all that much attention... Friday: KT and I succumbed to the advertising from the previous night and went to Henry's Puffy Tacos for lunch. I goofed away the afternoon, and then we went to a grad student Bar-B-Q, where I became a mooch off a mooch. We rented Rounders (3.5/5)that evening after failing to agree on a real movie to watch.

Di returned late Fri night with the news that she's decided to move to Houston with her lab. Saturday: After lunch at Denny's, we went to the North Star mall and took these pics with the boots.

Then we hit the bowling alley. I took the first game, and Di bowled the game of her life to take the second. Then we went down to the San Antonio Riverwalk. It's been featured in Cloak and Dagger and Selena. (Not that I've seen Selena) We went on a riverboat tour, and got dinner at the Olive Garden. That night we went and played cards in a coffeehouse.

Looks like a facade, huh?

Sunday: We had originally planned to go hiking to Enchanted Rock, but a thunderstorm kind of cancelled that plan. Instead we went to see Pushing Tin (2/5-but Di and KT liked it) and then went to Dave and Busters, which is kind of a Chucky Cheese's for adults. Lots of games, like where you had to be a jockey and actually ride a plastic horse... Lots o' fun...

That evening we rented Wayne's World (3.5/5) and Pleasantville (1.5/5- Pick a freakin' message and stick to it already!)

Katie on the couch

The three of us. (IM,WICF)

Monday: One last meal together at Pizza Hut and then off on the road...

Onward to Tucson

Back to the trip page