Waking up after a whiskey filled night with only 5 hours of sleep should have been torture but happily it wasn't! Clearly, we did not start our day off with a run and reminisced about the previous night's escapades instead. With the shennanigans behind us, we climbed in the green monster truck and hit the road for San Antonio. Next stop, the Alamo!
On the drive down I observed that the landscape buffering the highways in Texas is very different than that in Massachusetts. There are lots of fast food places and strip malls that line the roads. Just an observation. We also noticed that there are different medical clinics for various things everywhere. Eyes, ears, feet, ankles, carpel tunnel, etc. . . There were also some really massive churches; I mean massive. One looked as big as a shopping mall and had an extensive parking lot. So different.
Then we came upon San Antonio. It's a pretty small city center, but I loved it. There were plenty of parking lots charging $10, but we did find parking on the street. There were lots of meters if you headed one block outside of the city center. There is a main street with the Alamo, Ripley's Believe It or Not, and a wax museum. It looks like it would be a great place for families to visit. The girls and I decided to save the Alamo and eat first. We were ravenous so we headed to the Riverwalk. This is a really cool spot along the river with restaurants and shops lining it. Of course, there were plenty of Mexican restaurants and we ate at one. You would have thought we had never eaten before. I got guacamole in my nose and Niamh had some food particles under one of her eyes. A bunch of animals if you ask me! Triona and I had classic margaritas, of course. It was a fabulous spot to sit and eat and take in the scenery. There was a constant flow of water taxis, police boats, and tour boats to entertain us. I also got to see a few good cowboys in full cowboy attire.
After stuffing ourselves like pigs, we headed to the Alamo. If you have read my previous blogs, you might have read that sometimes I get really full. Well, this was one of those times. It felt like I had a brick sitting in my stomach. This is terribly awful feeling in the sun and heat of San Antonio. I tried not to complain, "uh, I am so full," too much, but when the girls started there was no stopping me.
Great thing about the Alamo, it's free!!! Every tourist attraction I have been to here has been free. Fantastic. They have a great set-up to teach people about the history of the Alamo and the history of Texas. It is so fascinating to me how different states in The United States of America have such different histories. A tour guide gave a speech about the history of the Alamo, but we think he must have been on the bacholrette party the night before with us. He kept having long pauses and was soaked with sweat. Triona was the lucky one when a rather large woman decided to stand right in front of her to take a photograph. Interesting experience for her to have a stranger's crotch right in her face. We were dying. I couldn't pick up my head for laughing so hard.
We were able to pull ourselves together enough to get up from our spot and go to the tourist information center. I found it to be an excellent source of souveniers at good prices. We tried to find a drink in San Antonio, and that proved harder than we thought! They only had water at the tourist center, and in the end we went to the little concession stand at the WAX museum. I was delighted to get a fountain Fanta orange as it is a rarity to find that in Boston. As we were sitting at the counter sipping our sodas, Triona remarked, "that man over there must be so tired. He has been posing like that all day. " "I know," I said, "it must be exhausting." "Yea, he must be really sore at the end of the day," Triona commented. "Triona, are you serious? Are you really serious?" "Yea, Katie, he must be really tired, Jeany mac." "Triona, look at the sign outside that tells us where we are." "Oh, he is wax." She is not really dumb. The girl is going to be a vet. Let's just hope she doesn't try to operate on any wax pets.
We didn't keep it together for long though. As soon as we got out of the main area, we all lost it with fits of laughter. I was the one that started it off and could not get a hold of myself. I am sure we looked and sounded really obnoxious to those unfortunate enough to pass us by, but I have not laughed like that it ages. Trying to calm myself down, I would take deep breaths and then lose it all over again when Triona asked, "what are you doing?" At one point Niamh thought she might pee her pants. Honestly, it was ridiculous and my back was absolutely killing me from bending over and laughing, but it made me forget about my full belly for a bit.
Once in the car and back on the highway, I couldn't get my mind off how full I was. Seriously, like 4 hours later I was still dying. I felt like my stomach had doubled in size. Every enormous billboard adverstising food, like Wataburger and Chick-fil-a, actually made me want to vomit. I couldn't even look at them and vowed I wouldn't eat for the rest of the day. Niamh promised she would remind me of this vow later on. We stopped for gas, and I decided to use the restroom. It was a good size station and had a large store with it so I wasn't really hesitant at all to use it. That changed when I walked in the door and noticed a man at the hot dog stand staring at me. In reality, he probably glanced my way for a second, but seeing as I am a paranoid scaredy Kat, I assumed he was going to follow me into the bathroom and kill me. Then I figured, Niamh and Triona would probably notice I was taking a really long time and come to check on me. As you now know, he didn't kill me. But I mentioned it to the girls, and Triona said that as I annoucned I was going to the toilet, she thought, "well, I wouldn't really go to the toilet here because it is kind of deserted," but she didn'tsay it becuse she didn't want to freak me out.
Continuing on our journey, we stopped at the San Marcos shopping outlets. We only went into the Nike outlet where I bought a pair of running shorts that I love! It wasn't really a bargain though, $33.00 at an outlet on sale. However, these are the best shorts ever. I told the girls when we got home that if I could, I literally would marry the shorts, they are that comfortable. Niamh suggested that it might be easier to do that in California than Texas.
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