Texas Part 1

Well after 15 years without a visit I finally arrived in USA to stay with my brother and his family in June. Once again airports and I just don’t seem to get along, after landing in Los Angeles I very nearly missed my connecting flight to San Antonio but after some negotiating I jumped the queue and got under way flying through all the formalities and straight onto the next plane with only time for a brief toilet stop. Not great after 11 hours on a plane but we got there. Easily spotted in the San Antonio airport I was welcomed by Rodger, Jennifer and Rayden with open arms. After 5 months of a wafer thin single squeaky bed I was living in luxury with a giant sized cosy bed not to mention the gym and pool on hand also. The weather was super hot with over 100˚F every day which was very warm compared to the yucky London weather with only 15˚C, not impressive (even Switzerland was better). Although in London’s defence apparently the weather had been quite nice the previous week.

My first experience out and about in Texas (other than the drive home from the airport) was off to the Tower Of America. Here we caught a glass lift up to a 360˚ walk way where you can view out over San Antonio, a very surprisingly flat city. It was extremely windy so we did not stay up and admire the view for too long. At the Tower Of America there was a great 4D movie about Texas, complete with 3D glasses, moving chairs, blowing air and squirting water. My nephew (2½ years old) Rayden thoroughly enjoyed the film and keeps asking for the movie with the spitting cow and helicopters, super cute! From here we made our way past The Alamo to the River Walk, the river walk is a man made canal that runs through the city and is lined by bars and restaurants. It has a fantastic ambience. We selected a great little cafe called the Rainforest Cafe to have dinner. The food wasn’t great but the whole cafe had a rainforest theme with running waterfalls and animals that came alive every 20 minutes, from snakes and parrots to monkeys and elephants.

The first weekend rocked around pretty quickly and we arose early and made our way through Fredricksburg to a place called the Enchanted Rock in a State National Park. It was a great big slab of Granite in the middle of nowhere, very strange. We climbed to the top which was a short steep climb with no official walk ways on the rock but the rock is very rough so has a lot of grip and we made it up without too much trouble. However on the way down we did seem to come a very awkward way and ended up doing a bit of rock hopping. The place where Rodger and Jennifer got married was very near the park so we couldn’t drive by without stopping in for a look, a stunning place and great wedding venue. On the way back we stopped in the town we had passed through Fredricksburg. Fredricksburg is a German town and we had lunch at a German cafe where I got to meet Jennifers brother and wife and try a Texan beer. When we left Fredricksburg we stopped in a LITTLE town Lucenburg where there is only a postoffice/bank/pub combined and is the only store in the town. It happened to be a day where there was a annual car show on and there was a great little band playing with a rooster in the tree crowing along, very amusing and hick townish.

On a Tuesday 23rd June one of Rodger’s work mates plays in a band Two Ton at another lovely old german town Gruene so we got Jennifers Dad to babysit and went out for the night. We had dinner at a lovely restaurant that has been converted out of an old mill. Great food and a fantastic setting with lots of bush and the river running down below. The band was also fantastic playing some great upbeat songs.

Thursday 25th saw some more extremely hot weather and we had arranged to go to a concert under the stars at the Botanical Gardens where we had pre-ordered a delicious boxed dinner and sat on our picnic rug listening to a wonderful live local band. Rayden wasn’t quite so keen on the sitting part but there was plenty to occupy him kicking up dirt and running around under the trees over the back out of everyones way.