Date: 3/14-3/16/2019
Location: San Antonio Hotel: Sure Stay Best Western Sea World
Traffic was horrible the whole way there. It started with an accident on 35 in Dallas. Next time we’ll listen to Waze when it tries to direct us around the city via Loop 12. Then there’s the terrible traffic in Austin, but that’s always a hot mess! Made our obligatory road trip stops at Buccees and DQ for a Blizzard – good ole Texas staples 🙂
Natural Bridge Caverns was the first stop of our “Spring Break Palooza”. Megan met us there on Thursday on our way into town. I’d seen billboards for this place for years, but had never been. We purchased our cavern tickets ($30 bucks a pop) and had over an hour to kill before our tour started, so the kids did the maze while Kevin and I baked in the sun. It was a fairly hot and super sunny day.
We lined up for our tour and the guide explained that this underground amazingness was discovered by 4 college kids spelunking (one of my favorite words) in 1960 – Can you imagine stumbling upon this?? It is the largest set of caverns in the state of Texas. In a nutshell, it was formed by an underground “river” that moved slowly through cracks and pores in the limestone. In time, it formed a huge underground passage. The continuous drips of water continue to form stalactites and stalagmites that are jaw dropping to look at. Also, one of cool things you see right upon entry, is a set of jaw bones from a species of grizzly bear that is over 8000 years old! Ok, enough of the science and history lessons . . Anyway, it was a really cool experience.
What was NOT SO COOL was the temperature. A steady 70 degrees year round, but at 99% humidity it felt like 170 degrees!! We were DRIPPING with sweat! Literally, I had sweat rolling off my shoulders! We made our way down 180 ft below the surface at steady and slow pace, hanging on to the hand rail so you don’t slip (that would be something I would do) where guides at different spots explained some of the different formations and what they were named, etc. The climb back up (did I mention it was 180 ft below the surface) was all held to the very end – whoa daddy!! We were all huffing and puffing and sweating like we were training for the Olympics. Dang, I’m out of shape, especially in this ridiculous humidity. We barely made it to the benches outside after spending 10 minutes at the water fountain, trying to keep from passing out. Thank God it was still tolerable weather outside (in the 70s), because I can’t image if it was August and 100 degrees when you exited from that death climb. I recommend touring this place this time of year and not in the summer.
From there, we drove to Megan’s house to see it for the first time. She bought it as a foreclosure and has redone almost the whole house. We met her 2 dogs, Jango & Ripley, and said goodbye to one of her roommates that was moving out that weekend. We tried the authentic Mexican restaurant called Lago de Chapala Jalisco Taqueria y Mexican Restaurant (try to say that 3 times fast) at the end of her neighborhood and loved it! Nolan had Mexican Coke in a bottle (not sure how it’s any different than American Coke – tasted the same to me). Homemade flour tortillas, the BEST quesadillas (per Cameron) and just all around really good food and cheap!
We checked into our hotel late and went straight to bed.
The next morning Megan joined us for the hotel continental breakfast, which was nothing to write home about, but did have the Texas shaped waffle iron that the kids love to do. We packed our waters and snacks and headed to Sea World, getting there before the gates opened. I dressed in short sleeves and told everyone they should do the same, because it was going to warm up and they’d be sorry having to lug around sweatshirts the whole day. Well I was wrong!! It was overcast, windy and COLD the whole day! Everyone bee-lined for the gift shops the second the gates open to buy up all the sweatshirts at a premium cost. Cameron and Ashley got sweatshirts (Cameron’s was 2 sizes too big, but that’s all they had). Kevin and Nolan were already prepared with the sweatshirts they wore in. I, on the other hand, just suffered through it. Kevin wanted to buy me a blanket that they were selling in the stands at the shows (I’m sure at a 300% mark up in order for Sea World to capitalize on the unusually cold day at this time of the year). I’m sure these same blankets and sweatshirts were pulled off the 30% off racks from the day before. I wouldn’t let him buy me a sweatshirt or blanket, but he was sweet enough to share his jacket with me (we each took an arm).
I think our favorite part of Sea World were the shows. We managed to see them all. Had work that schedule just right to fit them all in. Even managed to fit lunch in too. This consisted of standing in line for about an hour to get up to the burger stand where they just ran out of burgers after Nolan ordered his. I talked the guy into taking 4 burgers from the stand next to us that still had a couple left. $80 later and one of the worst burgers on a cold hard bun, we finished up so we could get back to the action. For some reason, my kids don’t like roller coasters, so Megan did a couple by herself while we wandered around and looked at some exhibits. The 4 of us did ride one together – not too exhilarating.
Ironically, one of my favorite shows was the rescue animal dog and cat show – not marine animal based at all. The sea lion show was a riot and the Baluga whale and killer whale shows were amazing too. We finished up with the dolphin exhibit and headed back to the hotel.
We were exhausted and decided picking up pizza from Luciano’s (another fabulous recommendation from Megan & Chicken Alfredo pizza was to die for!) and relaxing in the indoor pool & hot tub sounded like a good night.
The next morning Megan met us at the HEB downtown where we dropped off Kevin’s truck and piled in her car to park near the River Walk. We started early at the Alamo which was a good think because the lines were HUGE by the time we left. It was interested to see such a big part of Texas history right in person. We just did the self guided tour and took the obligatory pictures, something that my family has finally given into and complaining is down to a minimum at the number of pictures I make them take . . . they’ll appreciate it one day. After all, what would I put in these blogs if it weren’t for all these pictures??
After the Alamo, we headed down to the River Walk. I’ve always heard about what a cool place this was and I was not disappointed. We took a river boat tour and learned a lot about San Antonio history. We decided on the Mexican restaurant, Casa Rio, that the guide said was the oldest Mexican restaurant on the river walk. We stuck out the wind and cold so we could be right on the water and watch the other river boat tours go by. The food was ok, but it was more about the ambiance.
We said goodbye to Megan and hit the road back home. I talked Kevin into stopping in West, TX to get my favorite kolaches from Village Bakery. Unfortunately, it was closed due a death in the family, so I was forced to try the competitor, Czech Stop. It is right on the highway and the line was wrapped around the building. I was sure I’d been missing out all of these years with crowds this big to get all of the bakery items – NOPE! They are not even in the same category of awesomeness. Village Bakery is still #1 in my books. I’ve been eating this since I was a little girl. I remember the Taylors would drive there every December and get hundreds of frozen ones to give as gifts for Christmas. Yum!
It was a great trip and we packed a bunch in – Go, go, go the whole time! We needed to get back at decent hour because Kevin had to be up at 3:30 am for work the next day. Ugh! I don’t know how he does it. . . . By the way, who knew the speed limit on some parts of I35 is 85 now!! I thought it was a misprint or graffiti turning the 5,6,or 7 into an 8, but Kevin assured me it was the actual speed limit. Trickier camera shot than I thought, traveling at this speed, but I got it 🙂
We had to pick up chewy and Rory on the way home from their “camp”. We tried out a new dog sitter from Rover.com and I think it worked out well. Chewy made himself right at home, spooning the husband on the couch and sleeping in their bed with them We got picture updates and texts through out their stay. They went on walks, ate lots of treats and Chewy played up a storm with their dog Buster while Rory watched. Both dogs came home and napped for days. . . .busy vacation for them too.
To Have And To Haas 