buenas dias

I totally had “Sunday night insomnia” last night from sleeping so much over the last few days. I don’t mind. I think I have finally surpassed my sleep deficit! Our long weekend in San Antonio was a lot of fun. We left Thursday and spent much of the day on the road. We checked into the first hotel, which we lovingly nicknamed “The Swamp,” as it was worth every penny of the $45 per night that we paid for it. That, and we decided that it would be a good opposite to the hotel that we stayed in on Saturday night, which we called “Far, Far, Away,” (both names taken from “Shrek 2”) which was right on the Riverwalk and cost us closer to $200/night. Though I must admit, The Swamp had better cable. Go figure.

Thursday night, we had dinner at Landry’s on the Riverwalk. Little did we know that this was an omen of things to come. The meal was fabulous, but there were people everywhere – bumping into me, stopping to talk right in front of me, and generally annoying me. I am getting crotchety in my old age. However, we had a blast making up our “trip slang” during the meal. Have you ever noticed that when you go on a road trip with several people, a new set of words tends to emerge? Even if they are only around during that trip and fade away afterwards, they are part of your vocabulary for at least a few days. Being who we are, our trip slang hovered around potty humor. My dad has a co-worker who drinks some nasty looking shake every morning. So, my dad was reading the container and saw the phrase “bio-agreeable.” The co-worker explained that means the shake help keeps him “regular.” That’s all we needed to come up with:

Bio-agreeable: could mean that the food was good, as in “That salmon was really bio-agreeable! I’m stuffed!” or that you had to go take a dump, as in “I need to go be bio-agreeable. Wait for me in the lobby.”
Bio-disagreeable: basically the opposite of the above; could mean stomach ache, heartburn or intestinal distress
Bio-offensive: gassy, as in “For the love of Jim, we’re in an elevator! Could you please stop being bio-offensive?”
Bio-specific: you know whether it’ll be “number one” or “number two”
Multi-biotic: both numbers one and two
Bio-unsure: you might have to do a number two, but you won’t know until you get into the bathroom

You get the idea. I’m sure there were more, but I wouldn’t want y’all to stop talking to me or anything. Anyway, I haven’t laughed so hard or so much in a long, long time. I needed that. We walked our meal off around the Alamo, which looks magnificent lit up at night.

Friday dawned overcast, chilly and windy, but the folks at The Weather Channel (a.k.a. The Always Get It Wrong Channel) promised us it would be partly cloudy and in the high 70’s by the time we got to Sea World. I guess I believed them because I wanted it to be true. So I donned my shorts, a t-shirt and a sweater and we left in search of breakfast. There were about 50 IHOPs and Denny’s along our route, every one of them with a waiting line out the door. We finally gave up on that idea and hit a McDonald’s drive thru. What was up with all these people?

We pulled into Sea World at about 10:45am. The parking lot was not crowded at all! Unfortunately, it had not warmed up any either, so I was hoping to find one of the overpriced shops to buy a pair of Shamu® pants or something of that nature. My awesome father-in-law had scored us some free admission tickets since he works for Anheuser Busch, so we went to the will-call booth to pick them up. Honestly, if we hadn’t gotten free tickets, I don’t think we would have gone. Regular admission prices were outrageous - $46.99 + tax for each adult and $36.99 + tax for each child.

The first thing we happened upon once we entered the park was the Shamu® Express, which is the roller coaster for kids. Of course, Punkin wanted to ride it. I didn’t mind riding it with her. The line already curved out and around into a wooded area. Oh yeah! This is why we don’t do theme parks! My dad decided to go be bio-specific and then go save us a place in the amphitheater to see the Shamu® show. The captain copped a squat with our overpriced throwaway camera (someone forgot to pack the digital). Punkin and I waited. And waited. And waited. We got grumpy. The kids in front of us started acting up. The kids behind us started acting up. We got goosed. We got our toes stepped on. We had to listen to parents yell at their kids over and over, “ASHTON! Get off of that fence! How many times do I have to tell you? Do it again and we’re leaving!” [Ashton does it again] “Ashton, honey…mommy asked you not to play on the fence. Here’s a lollipop, ok?” I was silently thanking God that my child is good natured most of the time, and though she was bored and annoyed, she did not act up once. After about a 45-minute wait, it was our turn. We climbed aboard. The ride started. About 25 seconds later, it was over. We got off. Punkin thought it was awesome, so it was worth it. My dad called and said there was no way he could save us seats so he was going to go see some other show and we’d have to see a later Shamu® show. We looked around and noticed that there was a hell of a lot of people walking around all of a sudden, most with ginormous strollers.

We basically stuck to seeing shows after that. The Shamu® show, Believe, was amazing. It actually brought tears to my eyes watching the trainers interact with the killer whales. They seemed to have such a bond. Maybe it was just for show and the whales ate the trainers for dinner later, but for the time being, it was really moving. I had never seen Shamu® before. They’ve gotten the lighting and music just right so that it catches the shine on the skin of the animals and enhances their magnificence. I wanted to inquire about a trainer job, but the captain wouldn’t let me stay in San Antonio to live. Plus, he didn’t like the idea of me being that close to…well…killer whale teeth. And yes, there’s more than one Shamu®. I guess they name all of the whales Shamu®. Kind of like George Foreman and all his kids – George, George, George, George, and George. We also saw Viva! which was a Cirque du Soleil-esque performance with water acrobats interacting with beluga whales and dolphins. And then there was The Cannery Row Caper, which was a comedy-mystery featuring sea lions, an otter, and a huge walrus that does crunches. All of the shows were very good. The only thing I really wanted to do but didn’t want to wait in line for was the Steel Eel. We left around 4pm when we were all getting crabby and tired of the crowds.

Saturday, we drove down to “Far, Far Away” and parked in their garage so that we could peruse the Riverwalk. We walked all the way down from the north end to the south end, where the Rivercenter Mall is located. We stopped at one of the many Starbuck’s for refreshments and listened to a pipe/flute band perform “Another Brick in the Wall.” It was interesting to say the least. We decided to walk around the mall a bit and I was lucky enough to find a little massage store where I acquired a 15-minute chair massage. SCORE! After the mall, we went up to street level and walked back to Far, Far Away to hang and rest in the lobby until our rooms were ready. It turned out to be a quiet night with dinner at Texas Land and Cattle on the Riverwalk and then back to our suites to watch TV, read and basically laze around until we all fell asleep.

Sunday consisted of checking out of Far, Far Away and driving home. As much fun as we had, it was nice to be back home again.