All weekend for a reason known only to that one brain cell that just
wouldn't click I kept calling this town San Diego. Cheri kept pounding on
that particular cell each time it erupted however and by the time we left I had
it figured out.
San Antonio! Nice Town!
The decision to visit said Antonio came easily after Marjorie Beenders and
her brother David Duncan offered us a hotel room in the Crown Center (David is
the manager!) right on the river walk as a thank you for helping them out
with the Daisy's Angels golf tournament in Illinois last summer. It is a fund
rasisng event in memory of Daisy...their Mom...who was a dedicated fund raiser
herself. We are always glad to help! And Thank You Marjorie and Dave!!!
We drove to KC friday evening a little later than we had originally planned
but still managed to find a Super 8 with a vacant room 10 minutes from the
airport. We had to be at the airport about 6:30 and didn't want to start the
weekend with a 3 hour driv starting at 3:30 a.m.
Got to the airport early and dropped Cheri off at the terminal (Bad
name!) and proceeded to long term parking. Now, if you know the airport this is
no big deal. Just follow the signs to long term, find your airlines parking lot
and you are set. Not being a frequent flyer in anything other than balloons,
however, I managed to follow the signs fine until I got to the detour sign.
I had no idea if I was detouring to the parking lot or to the exit! After only a
couple of U turns I spotted a parking lot patroler in a car keeping warm and
asked him where I was and needed to be. As I drove into the lot and
searched for an identifiable parking space there were little blue busses
driving up and down all the roads picking up riders. I had been told by Billy
that the blus bus was the one to look for so I parked and headed for a bus stop.
Not a bus in sight. A few mor people showed up and we all huddled in the little
room with the heater and watched and remembered all the warm days and
little blue busses we had seen earlier. Where is one when you need it!
Finally picked us up and deposited us at the terminal where Cheri was
standing patiently waiting and considering sending out a search party. She had
already checked in our baggage and gotten the boarding passes so we proceeded
through the security screening. I had been warned not to make any cute remarks
about the bomb in my shoe so I kept my mouth shut but they still made us take
off our shoes.
A short wait for boarding ensued and we soon were happily seated in a
window and middle seat. This plane was not too full so we got all 3 seats to
ourselves. After only a few more minutes we got the instructions on how to bend
over and kiss your butt goodbye in case of emergency and began our taxi onto the
runway. Cheri swears she likes to fly but in reality all she really likes is the
takeoff! If she could just take off and land over and over again all day she
wouldn't care if she actually went anywhere. Jus the rush of the g forces and
the lift as you rize gracefully from the runway, then the slow banking turn as
the pilot gets us on course for Dallas Love field. Way Cool!!!
Changed planes in Dallas and got to do it all over again! (Except the
parking part) Landed in San antonio about 11:15 I think. She had allowed me
the window seat at Dallas so I looked down a lot. You can indeed see a lot from
ann 737 window but quite frankly, looking out of a 8 inch by 12 inch
multipane glass window is nothing compared to looking out of a balloon basket!
If balloons could only cover that much ground that fast I'd take the balloon any
day!
However, I couldn't help but notice that San Antonio is one of the most
spread out Cities I've seen. There are subdivisions surrounded by ranches miles
away from the beginning of the city itself. If we had of had a car we might have
explored out there a bit.
Jumped into a cab and had him drop us off at the wrong hotel. Somehow I had
thought it was the Marriot but Marjories note plainly says "Crown Center". Oh
well, it was the first of many long walks thru downtown San Anton! Did you
ever notice haw a suitcase gains weight each block you carry it?
Finally got to the hotel and was helped by a most gracious young lady with
a soft English accent named "Trainee". She's good Dave, you'll want to keep her
around if she can stand all those grumpy business travelers on monday mornings.
She sent us up to our room on the 19th floor and aimed us toward the elevator
which wasted no time skipping past floor 13 and stopping at 19. The signs
pointed us to a room on the north side of the building which turned out to have
a nice view, especially of the lighted city at night. Once again, it seemed to
go on forever!
We then went to look for the best route to the river walk which happens to
be... walk out the door of the hotel! It is indeed really neat! My only
complaint was the pigeons which had no qualms about pecking crumbs or perhaps
bees off of your shoes while you are sitting eating at an outdoor restaurant.
One divebombed right between us as we sat at our table and practiocally took a
bite out of my taco! If he had of only asked I would have been happy to
share.
We walked the river for a few hours, including a tour of the Alamo (It's
right downtown!!!) and headed back to the hotel to plan our next day.
We slept till we were done and then climbed onto bus #64 which, after only
a few downtown stops, took us to Sea World. That was fun! I would tell you all
about it but my attention span isn't that long. Just imagine seals, dolphins,
sea lions, Penguins, several whales named Shamoo, lots of splashing,laughing and
walking not to mention a 4d IMAX show! 4d? Yes, it really is! Then imagine
another bus ride home and you pretty well got it!
Great Fun!!!
Monday was to be shopping day. We first went to the "Farmers Market" but
after a short look around we realized that it was just a place to buy anything
Southwestern or Mexican that you could possibly imagine. They even sell Mexican
painted bathroom sinks! Have you ever walked into a bathroom and seen a orange,
blue , green and purple sink beside the toilet? Do the paint toilets to match?
We did find a restaurant with a sign proclaiming that it was voted the best
Mexican Food in San Antonio in 2005. It was pretty good but the best thing was
the 2 old guys that came to our table with a couple of guitars and serenaded
Cheri for me. They said it was a romantic ballad but they could have been saying
I was a dirt bag for all Cheri knows!
It was obvious that this was not our kind of shopping so we jumped on the
trolley and for 80 cents he took us all the way to the other end of downtown
which saved us about 10 blocks of walking. That is where the Mall is. It is
actually right beside the Alamo and The riverwalk! Handy! after shopping for a
while we went down to the riverwalk and spotted one of the river tour boats.
David had supplied us with some passes that loked like they may be for the boat
so we asked the guy and he said that they were actually for the river taxi! Now,
if you take the tour boat it takes you around the river route and he gives you a
guided tour and explaihs what some of the buildings are and all that neat stuff.
I have no idea what they cost but whatever it is don't do it! Take the Taxi!!!
For $10 you get a 24 hour pass for the taxi and he takes you whever you want to
go on the route and drops you off and next one that comes by you can get on
again! It also goes further than the tour boats. Plus, our "driver"... I think
his name was David too...Told us all about the buildings too! He would see
people walkig around looking lost and give them directions to where they needed
to go. Cool guy! It takes the taxi about 30 minutes to do the entire route and
there are 2 of them so one comes by about every 15 minutes. We always managed to
wait until David came by so we had the same driver all day and night. His last
run was at 9pm so we climbed on and he took us right to the steps to our hotel!
Yes, definetly take the taxi!
Tuesday saw us packing and saying goodbye to "Trainee" the last time as we
climbed into our van/cab with another passanger who was glad to share the ride
and the cost back out to the airport. He was headed for Mexico City form
Montreal. He had something to do with NAFTA. Nice guy.
When we checked our bags at the airport the skycap told us that our flight,
which was supposed to be direct to KC had been canceled but they had arranged
another flight that would go back to Dallas again. No problem! That means Cheri
gets and extra take-off! This flight, however, was FULL. It was time
for it to leave and the pilot comes on the intercom and says that we are
waiting for a couple more people that had to transfer but as soon as they had
their golf clubs stowed we would be leaving. I just wondered where they were
going to sit! Were there seatbelts on the toilets? This plane was already packed
and he was bringing on more golfers? Well, they finally got on and found a seat
somehow and we began lumbering down the taxiway. My mind is going back to a
couple of times when I had to take some oversized passangers in the balloon. It
seemed like it took forever to get the ballon off the ground but this plane
didn't have forever it only had the length of the runway!
Well, he just kicked that 737 into overdrive and we were off with plenty of
room to spare. Changed planes in Dallas and as we were waiting we found out that
the reason the other flight had been cancelled was that the plane had been hit
by lightning! It didn't wreck or anything but theree was enough damage to ground
it for repairs. Whew! That was close! The next night on the History channel they
had the storry of "Flight 191" which had crashed on takeoff in the 70s. It was a
DC10 I think. Seems that one of the engines had fallen off right after they
became airborn. I'm glad I didn't watch that before we went!!!
It was quite fun all around and a nice break to the regular rythm of life.
if we ever find ourselves in San Anton again I think we will rent a car to
explore the rest of the area too. Maybe drive down to Corpus Christy to see the
Gulf. If you get an excuse to go don't pass it up!!!
Lots of Love
Herb an dCheri