Don't Forget!

To start off, thanks to everyone on the condolences about my sweet Grandmother. Secondly, we aren't at risk by the wildfires right now, so that's good.

Also, can I just say that you know it's been HOT when you go outside and say "Oh, it's so nice and cool out today! I'm going to take a walk while it's so balmy!" And it's 90 outside. Really. We were excited that it was only a 2 digit temperature today. Craziness.

Two weeks ago, Noel and I took a mini-vacation to San Antonio. Neither of us had ever been before, but we will definitely go back. It's fab!

The view from our hotel was gorgeous:

San Antonio is known for its riverwalk, a pedestrian area surrounding a river that runs right through town. It has restaurants, shops, and hotels all the way down it, and it's just fantastic!

There are bridges across the river, and each are different. Some are quite old too:

San Antonio has interesting sculptures too - this is a really big piece that stands out against the sky nicely:

And...what's this? I forget.....just kidding. It's the Alamo!

And who's this? Why, it's an official Texan! (Holding her new temporary Texas driver's license!) And shooting a finger gun! Because it's the Alamo!

The Alamo was quite interesting. We had heard from several people that it was anticlimatic - it's much smaller than expected, and it's in the middle of a built-up touristy part of town. However, it had a lot of history plaques, a lot of description of life at the time and the battles that took place building up to the battle at the Alamo, and a nice museum.

It was especially interesting since Noel grew up in the town where David Crockett was born, and we then visited where ol' Davy died. We took the opportunity to buy some souvenirs there as well, particularly the ones with David Crockett's most famous quote on it. When he was running for re-election in Tennessee, he said that if they didn't vote him back into office:

"You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas."

Indeed.

We also went to the Texas Rangers museum (not the baseball team, the soldiers). Not pictured, Chuck Norris. It had a whole section that was built like an old west town, which was fun.

Note: That horse? Was actually a real horse that was one of the ranger's favorite horses, and was stuffed after he (the horse) died. I have no response to that...

In another part of the museum, they had a variety of Texicana. Here's Noel under an impressive ceiling full of deer horns:

In case you're creating your Christmas wish list, here's a little item you may want to consider - a chair made of horns:

Looks comfy!

The museum even had its own cowboy!

One of the cool things about San Antonio is the Tower of the Americas, an observation tower with a restaurant at the top:

We went to dinner there one night (yes I'm afraid of heights but other than the GLASS ELEVATOR, it wasn't scary), and got to see some spectacular views:

The restaurant itself was really swanky and super nice. The food was phenomenal. YUM!

On our last day there, we went to lunch at a place called Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian style steakhouse that is a carnivore's dream. Skewers of different types of meat cooking over an open flame:

How does the meat get from the skewer to your plate? Waiters bring the skewers around to you and you choose if you want some or not, and they carve it off the skewer! The food was DELICIOUS!! And the waiters are wearing little gaucho pants tucked into their boots! Hee hee.

We essentially walked and ate, then sat down and ate, then sat in the pool and later ate. And then ate some more. Did I mention that we ate everything we could get our hands on? San Antonio is fantastic - we loved it there. And we will be going back!