Vacation (All I Ever Wanted)

Back from vacation now – we had a really great time. Except for the funeral, the car accident, and the tropical storm. Oh yeah.

Day 1: We drove to San Antonio. We left later than we ( I ) had planned to and so ended up stopping for lunch in Waco instead of Austin. I had wanted to maybe see the capitol and find a nice cute restaurant in Austin, but we were hungry and so just pulled off the interstate in Waco. After lunch, as I was pulling out of the parking lot, a girl backed into me. I was hopeful she didn’t damage my van, but no, her SUV ripped a hole in my bumper. Aagh. It was clearly her fault, and the van was still driveable and everything, but still an aggravation I didn’t want. By the time we got on the road again, we weren’t in the mood to stop in Austin so we just drove on to San Antonio. We went straight to the funeral home to the viewing for David’s BIL. We got to talk to his sister quite a bit, she went through the whole story with us of how Felix had been diagnosed with leukemia in May, been through one round of chemo that was successful, went through the second round, got an infection, got really bad, got better, then got really bad again and died rather suddenly, compared to what he had been through before. We also met Felix’s sisters and parents and spent some time talking with David’s aunts. After the viewing, all the family went back to David’s sister’s house for dinner and we stayed there probably until around 10:00. Our kids were having fun playing with their cousins (whom they had never met) and we were enjoying everyone’s company too, as sad as it was. Patty said several times that she was glad we came, that it meant alot to her. I don’t really get the whole "having a sister that you don’t talk to for years at a time, and then when you do see her it’s like nothing ever happened" situation, but whatever. I liked her husband, and I’m sorry he died, and I wish we lived closer so we could help her more with her kids. But we don’t, so we probably won’t see them again until the next time we go down there to visit (which if I have my way will be a LONG TIME because over the 3 days we were there, I had my fill of David’s mom’s family).

When we finally left her house which is north of San Antonio, we had to drive south of downtown to get to our hotel. We got lost, and David kept telling me what a bad neighborhood we were driving around. (He lived in SA for several years). We finally got to the hotel (I had mapquest directions, and they had pulled the usual mapquest trick of saying "slight left" instead of U-turn, which is why I got lost) and got checked in. Got to our room, and had no towels whatsoever. I called the front desk, and the girl told me there were no more clean towels in the hotel. Que? So I asked if we would at least get some in the morning. She said "No, they won’t be done cleaning the rooms until afternoon, I’m really sorry." And hung up. It was around 11:30 by this time and I was NOT IN THE MOOD. I had noticed the hotel manager had a letter on the desk that said "blah blah, if you are unsatisfied for any reason do not hesitate to call me personally" and it gave her cell phone number. So I called her, felt slightly bad when she was clearly asleep as she answered the phone, but told her the towel situation and she said she would take care of it. Fifteen minutes later, we had towels. Hmm.

Other than that, I liked the hotel. It was a Comfort Suites which we had never stayed at before. The room had a kitchentte (microwave, sink & full refrig/freezer), a couch, and 2 king-sized beds. It was a great size for us.

Day 2: We had the rosary in the evening, but other than that no plans. We got up and ate breakfast in the hotel (another pleasant surprise – I thought "free breakfast" would have meant cold cereal and coffee, but they had waffle stations, scrambled eggs, sausage, danishes, fruit, plus cold cereal and coffee). Our first stop was the Alamo – we walked around the grounds a bit then went inside. It was more crowded inside than I have ever seen it and it was HOT. We looked around for 2 minutes then went back outside. Oh well, we’ll have to try that again. Then we walked down to the Riverwalk and took a boat cruise around. The guide pointed out the oldest restaurant on the Riverwalk, so when we were done with the cruise we went back there and ate (good Mexican food). After that we walked to the mall where there is an IMAX movie about the Alamo, but when we got there the kids wanted to see a 3-D dinosaur movie instead. It was ok, at least it was cool in the theater.

When that was over, we walked down to the Hemisfair Tower. Which was fun, but hard to describe. (We went up, and then went down). Then we walked back to our car. This was maybe the hottest day of the year. We were drenched and exhausted. We went back to the hotel to shower and change, then went back to the funeral home for the rosary.

After the rosary, we got some Bill Miller BBQ (some typical San Antonio BBQ according to David) and took it back to the room and ate. We were all pretty tired so we didn’t do anything else but watch TV and relax.

Coming up: the funeral (fortunately, unlike the last funeral I went to that included David’s mom’s side of the family, no one threatened to come back later that night and dig up the body), the beach, the aircraft carrier, & the storm.