Monday 30 September 2013

236 Uvaldi to San Antonio

Friday 27th September 2013
Miles today 160 Total   23,291
We woke this morning and the sky was overcast and it was seriously humid, not enjoyable for on the bike, however once we got going there was a breeze which kept the temperature down a bit.  It was pretty much the same scenery as yesterday, and Ray took us off into the hills to a motorcycle "resort" called Frio Canyon.  As we pulled in for lunch, we heard a lot of shouting and saw people waving, it was the Germans with the Texan, Mark, from yesterday.
Mark, Elke, Thomas and Sebastian
Frio Canyon

We spent a fair bit of time with them, and then we all went our separate ways.  The guys and gals are splitting up with Mark tomorrow as he has to get back for work, but they are hoping to meet up with us in San Antonio at some stage.
We rode a couple of passes that had been recommended to us and then we high tailed it to San Antonio.  We are booked into a Super 8 hotel in the North West of the city, and are here for the next 5 nights.  We had a quiet evening are are planning to go to Sea World tomorrow.

Saturday 28th September 2013
Miles Today 19 Total 23,320
Sea World doesn't open till noon, so we both got on with some chores.  Our clothes are clean and so is the bike.  We headed off to the park and got soaked before we even got on any rides.  The weather had threatened thunderstorms and showers, which we got, but it was so humid, you didn't really dry out.  The park is a lot smaller than the one in Orlando, with fewer rides.  The dolphins were really special.

Just beautiful but very difficult to catch on film, it's like they know and go, "sod you lot"
 
Then we sat through the corniest show with the sea lions, all done in a Halloween theme.  The sea lions were quite clever, but they were upstaged by the cutest little otter call Egor.

Slides rule okay!



 The whole park has a section for Halloween and that was due to open about 7pm, so we amused ourselves with the other rides and sea life exhibits until then.




 
We went on one ride called the Electric Eel. Now I love roller coasters, but even I wished they would stop so I could get off.  Ray still isn't speaking to me.  He started off all brave and cheering, and then he went very quiet, and it appears he has been in a state of shock ever since.  His only words to me have been, "you know I don't like heights"!

The blurry streak is the carriage that we were in, and does show how high we were and how fast, great but even I wanted to get off.!
We stayed for the scarey night time and I got flashing horns and a luminous glass trying to get in the spirit of things.


Couple more of these please, oh A+ if your interested.


Celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary. You can see I still dye my hair!

Dracula even asked if he could check out my blood group.  Ray had recovered sufficiently to admire Lady Dracula!!!!

Who is more scarey, Lady Vampire or Gaga?
 We were thinking about leaving just before 9pm, when we walked past the Whale show.  Shamu was putting on a Halloween show, so we thought we'd have a quick look.  It was fantastic.  There were 6 killer whales in all and they were amazing.  We got completely soaked again, but it was well worth it.  It was a great end to the day.


The water flying before we got our 4th soaking for the day, and hid the camera.

Halloween comes to Shamu.







Sunday 29th September 2013
Miles today 18     Total 23,338
The thunder and lightening hit about midnight and carried on throughout the night.  It was gloriously sunny when we first looked out this morning, but soon changed to very clouhttp://www.blogger.com/homedy and humid again.  We struggled to get our acts together, but finally decided to do a bit of sight seeing.  We rode into the center of San Antonio and headed straight for the iconic Alamo.


Entrance to the Shrine

Model of the battle

Beautiful old tree in the grounds.

We had a wander around and listened to some bloke who sounded like he should have been on the Simpsons giving us a history lesson on the Fort.  There was a Shrine in the complex and rather spookily for Ray, there were plaques with the names of the "Hero's of the Alamo", one of the names was Jesse B Bowman, which was Ray's mother's name.  There was no other information, but it does make you take a sharp intake of breath.  It was also quite surprising, the number of English, Scottish and Irish names that appeared of those. that got caught up in it all.
From there, we headed to The River Walk, it had been recommended to us and at first it seemed a bit like a walk along the canal back at home, but it soon livened up and became this absolute buzzing place, with restaurants and bars and souvenir shops.  There were Police boats, and cruise boats that went round in ever decreasing circles, but the whole place had a lovely atmosphere if you didn't get too sucked in, we did get sucked into the Irish pub, but I won't bore you with that now.


On patrol, "You really have to want this job, shortest beat ever!

It is done out beautifully.  He's not too bad either.

I'm on the bridge pointing to the sign Alamo Street, it's lovely, but everything has been named for the tourist. Is that cynical?
One of the lovely churches on our way out of town.

Having done very little for two days, we were shattered, so headed back to the sanctuary that is The Super 8.

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