some go to the ocean, some go to the mountains...

...we go to the Alamo.

Rob and I got back from San Antonio today, and other than a couple hairy situations, we had a great time. We stayed at a hotel on the river, and 90% of what we wanted to do was within walking distance. All weekend, I'm guessing we walked....800 miles or so?

Okay, more like 6-7. But by the 3rd day, it was beginning to feel like a lot more than that. :)

The first day was a little rough, seeing as neither one of us had been to San Antonio before. We took the hotel's back exit to the Riverwalk, and went in search of tourist traps. Also, a restaurant, since it was 6 pm and we had been driving for 3 hours.

Anyway, we got onto the sidewalk by the river, thinking, "well, this is nice enough", only there was nothing there. Rob started to walk to the left, but we kept running into people going the other direction. When I looked at the other side of the river, everyone was heading our direction. So, with no bridge in sight, I told Rob we should follow the rest of the people on our side of the river.

After walking about a mile, I began to wonder what was the deal with Riverwalk. Trees, blah, blah, bridge, walk-walk-walk, hotel, hey, look--riverboat!, tree, water, tree, etc. Where's the STUFF? We went street level and tried to puzzle it out up there, but only got more confused. As we were driving in, there had been tourists everywhere on Commerce Street, but I couldn't find Commerce Street. Besides which, what the hell did they all come here for? And where did they all GO? I started to look nervously for evidence of a mass alien abduction.

Well, about an hour went by, the only food we'd seen was the Mexican restaurant next to our hotel, and the only places of note that we'd seen were a little Catholic bookstore and a dodgy neighborhood over by the bus station. So, by this time, I'm thinking this is the worst vacation ever. I'm hungry, my feet hurt, we'd been walking for hours in a strange city, and did I mention I'm starving?

Hungry led to cranky, and we finally gave up and found our way back to our hotel. Just as we were about to ask the front desk where the hell we can eat (since, you know, THEIR RESTAURANT WAS CLOSED), Rob spotted the "Ask Jose" machine, which will give you directions to any of the tourist stuff if you insert your room key. It was love at first sight, me and Jose.

So anyway, we saw that Jose knew how to get to a steakhouse, and it was only ONE BLOCK from the hotel. I was skeptical, but following Jose's directions quickly showed us the error of our ways. If we had continued in the direction Rob wanted to go in the first place then taken the first left, we would have found exactly what we were looking for. Restaurants, street vendors, hotels, as far as the eye could see. And footbridges to cross from side to side! And here were all the missing tourists! Of course, we barely saw any of this, because we stopped at the very first restaurant that would have us.

To make a long story a little shorter, San Antonio was a much cooler place after we stopped wandering around like lost and ravenous bears. We browsed the good part of the Riverwalk, went to a cool church, took a riverboat tour, went to some art fair in La Villita (which was totally not worth the $3 admission), walked through the wax/Ripley's museum (these tickets were included with our package deal, or we probably wouldn't. Hokey, but one of the better parts of the trip...), and visited the Alamo. We ate great food, drank good wine, enriched our knowledge of Texas history, walked a lot, and were serenaded by Mariachis. Not a bad way to spend our anniversary weekend.

By this morning, though, we were both missing home and Noah pretty badly, and not the least bit sad that it was the last day. After breakfast and a walk through the Alamo (the one thing we hadn't done yet--it was closed when we were there the night before), we picked up the car and headed home, declaring the anniversary trip a resounding success.

And when a truck ran a red light and barreled into the side of our car, when we were barely 15 minutes from home? It didn't even seem all that bad.

And it wasn't...no one was hurt, and the car's still driveable. The guy braked when he saw us, and Rob had the presence of mind to speed up rather than put on his brakes. If he hadn't, I probably would be writing this from the local hospital using a pen stuck between my teeth. Thanks to my husband's mad driving skillz, the only casualty was my rear quarter panel. It's in critical condition, I'm afraid, and not expected to recover. It is expected to be replaced, though, at someone else's expense. So, yay!