The rest of our long weekend in San Antonio was spent enjoying a lot of down time, as it rained almost the entire time we were there. And we weren't complaining about that! I can't remember the last time we saw some rain, it was nice to have some lazy days.
We were able to get out one afternoon to take a walk around a park nearby and exploring the area that Eric spent his early years. His parents now live in Universal City (just outside San Antonio), which is where their family used to live.
We explored a little town called Gruene which was basically one street with a couple little shops, truly a small town!
The rain started back up but we couldn't go back home without making a stop at one of the largest convenience stores, Buc-ee's!
We played lots of games inside and spent lots of time on the covered patio.
We went to have lunch with Eric's grandma. She lives in such a nice community, we always love going to visit her.
Our last night there we braved the rain to take a walk down at the River Walk.
It was a short trip but we had a great time, we can't wait to go back!
The weekend before Eric's birthday we went mini golfing at Mission Beach. He got a hole in one on the first hole!
The course was in the middle of Belmont park, where there are a lot of other attractions like a wooden roller coaster, sky ropes, arcades games, etc.
After mini golf we went to get ice cream, since I wouldn't be the one making him a cake this year. The morning of his birthday, we were heading out to San Antonio!
Before we left for the airport, he had just enough time to open a couple presents.
Much to his chagrin, I made him wear the birthday ribbon all day.
It proved useful because we got upgraded to priority boarding on Southwest. We got to sit in the very first row with so much room to stretch out!
The stewardess also had everyone on the plane close their windows, turn on their call lights, and sing happy birthday to Eric. It was very sweet, and his face was very red :)
Once we were in San Antonio, we went out to dinner with Eric's parents, his aunt Kay, and his grandma at La Fiesta.
We had delicious food, he got to open some more presents, and have cake. It was a special birthday for a very special guy. He loved having a couple days off work and getting to spend it with family!
I'll post about the rest of our trip soon. And happy early birthday to Chris! We hope you have a great day!
Our second day in Mexico we went on a canopy tour that included hanging bridges and ziplines.
Neither one of us had done hanging bridges before and it was a big challenge! They had five different types of bridges. The one below was straight boards single file so it was like walking along a moving balance beam high above the ground. They had another one where each plank was suspended separately so all the boards would move in a different direction as you stepped from one to the other.
It took a lot of arm strength but it was exciting and rewarding once we got to the other side!
The ziplines were also a lot of fun. The one in the picture below was the longest. It was so long they required everyone go tandem because if there wasn't enough weight to propel you to the end, you could get stuck in the middle just hanging there. I circled where we ended up.
After an exciting morning we went back to the house to enjoy one more afternoon of the beach.
We had fun searching for sand dollars, I had never found one before this trip!
One of the toughest things about the trip was trying to find food. We weren't in a very touristy area so there weren't a lot of options available. There were shacks on the side of the road that offered various things like fruit or raw fish/shrimp but that was about it.
Thankfully we brought enough food with us to basically get us through the whole weekend cooking at the house. However on our last night we did find La Marina Seafood and Grill less than a mile away.
There was a pretty sweet car parked outside so we figured we were at the right place.
It was very simple inside with tables, mis-matched tablecloths, some plastic lawn chairs and some wooden chairs. But everyone was so nice and having a blast celebrating someone's birthday. They had a man singing mariachi and people dancing.
After all that excitement we were beat and needed to get ready for the trip home!
On the way out the next morning Eric stopped to pick up a few tamales.
The drive up was just as beautiful as the drive down.
Once we got about one to two miles outside of the border, things started going downhill. It was just before noon when we reached the traffic getting back into the U.S. We had heard sometimes it could take two hours to get across the border.
It was all very interesting at first. There were people running up and down the streets trying to sell you anything - food, drinks, blankets, toys, car parts, desks, anything. The guy behind us had his wiper blades replaced in moving traffic in about 3 seconds. I was too bewildered by everything around me for the first 30 minutes to even think to take pictures.
Once we got a little further up we started seeing all the vendor carts stationed out in the middle of the road between lanes. After about an hour, we had to turn the air conditioning off because we thought we might be having some car trouble. The thermostat read 101 degrees, no AC, and the windows were rolled all the way up because people were constantly trying to give things to us.
By around 3:30 pm we got to a point where we could actually see the border in the distance. By this point there were actual shops all along the side of the highway.
They also had people trying to entertain by juggling or dancing, we even saw someone dressed up as Shrek!
We really tried to make light of it in anyway we could. But after 6 hours in stopped traffic (to move a total of 1.5 miles), I was never more excited to be back in the States!
