We took a family vacation to San Antonio two weeks ago. It was a great, fun, exhausting trip. We drove to S.A. on Friday and checked in to our hotel with enough time to go down to the riverwalk area. We discovered several things on our drive down. I dislike Austin’s traffic about the same as Dallas traffic, and that I-35 is always being worked on. How old is this freeway? Are they ever going to finish it? The riverwalk was fun and the kids had fun. We did take a boat ride and had a really lousy meal at an expensive Italian restaurant. Thanks for asking.
We woke up Saturday, had our free, hot breakfast and headed to SeaWorld. That really should be Sea of People World. OMG. Was it packed. Tempers were flaring literally, but that’s later. It was also hot, and SeaWorld does not sell drinks other than at the food shacks. So, it is a 45 minute wait to get a drink. Not planned real well, but enough griping, this is vacation. We got there at 10 am and promptly headed to the Lost Lagoon to find lockers. Well, we decided to stay at their waterpark for several hours, like maybe six. We had fun on the lazy river, riding a few of the slides, playing in the wave pool, splashpark, etc. We also had a $42 lunch there too. I guess Shamu has to eat too. After changing back into street clothes we saw the seal show, rode a couple rides, and saw Shamu too. Shamu was an interesting experience. We got there 30 minutes early and found a standing room only crowd. Wow! Well tempers were flaring. Some jarhead’s wife was partailly crushing Crisana, so I aked her if she could give my daughter a little room. Well husband with no brain tries to start a fight with me and threatens me. Marines have to be smarter than that, gotta have been an Army puke. What a real jerk, and that put a damper on the day for me. The world would be a better place without people like him, but I digress. I am sure that has been said about me as well. We left Seaofpeopleworld at 10pm. Yes, twelve hours there.
The next day we had a milder day. We hit the S.A. Zoo, swam in the hotel pool, and had dinner with my old college roommate whom I have not seen in 14+ years. The Zoo was fun, but it was a zoo. Lots of animals in cages. The zoo did have free refills on certain drink cups, so we did not have the thirst problem of the other day. We did get to see a couple of special exhibits including ‘bugmainia’. No bug exhibit would be complete without the Madagascar hissing cockroach. We were not let down. It was a fun time, but we werer all a little tired after SeaWorld, so it was a good choice. We got back to the hotel with just enough time for a 45 minute swim before leaving for dinner.
Dr. Richard Alan Blask was my college roommate for three years while at the university of Texas: Texas A&M University. He was one of the ushers in my wedding which corresponds to the last time I saw him. It had been over 14 years…wow. It was a good time, and a good dinner. He took us to a place in the Quarry Shopping Center. It was a good meal, and fun times. Seeing him was a fluke, because six weeks earlier he was living in upstate New York, where he had been for eight years or so. He always sends us an anniversary card, and this year was no exception. This time it included his new contact information. We had already planned the vacation, so that was pretty cool. I hope it does not take another 14 years to see him.
Our last full day in S.A. was Monday, and that was spent at Fiesta Texas. OMG, when can I rest? I guess when I get back to work. It was a good time, and not crowded at all. We bought one very expensive cup at the start, and had free refills on it the entire day. It worked out well. The only downer of the day was the blisters that Trey got on his feet. The first ride we took was a Bugs Bunny log ride. I had been on many of those, and know you generally don’t get real wet. I was wrong. I did not know how much water was already in the flume. We pointed downhill at one point, and Trey and I got really sloshed. It was fun. I got ride several roller coasters. Superman is by far my favorite one period. Much better than the one up here. It was awesome. Trey got to ride his first big boy roller coaster too. We road the Road Runner Express and Tony Hawke’s Big Spin. We also took a break and saw a C&W show. Crisana and Trey got to ride swings, cars, airplanes, ferris wheels, cups, etc. They had a blast. We kept the day shorter than most. We were there for only ten hours. The best part: It was Monday. The crowds were minimal. The longest line was 20 minutes and many were less than 10. We also got to see: Flash, Batman, Robin, Pepe le Pue, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and several others. We went back to the hotel and packed, for the next day we were leaving.
We left the next morning and headed up to New Braunfels for Schlitterbahn. The kids had fun, that is the important thing. Dad would have rather taken them to a different waterpark. It was an off day for them. The river tubing rides only had a 45 minute wait minimum. We had about six hours to spend there, and spending that much in line was not anyone’s idea of fun. We did wait in some shorter 20 minute lines, but all in all, I’ll go elsewhere next time. The important thing is that the kids did have fun. Wait till next year kids, Dad has a surprise for you in summer fun arena. We left at about 5ish and hit the road to head home. We got in right at 10:30 and fell into bed. I did get to work on time the next morning.
