San Antonio - Feb 2006

We spent a month in San Antonio enjoying the great weather and visiting with family and friends. We also had a few more medical appointments to deal with and so, along with working on our taxes, applying for passports, having some repairs done to our car and enjoying some big city shopping, we pretty much filled up our time.

We stayed at Admiralty RV Park near Sea World and, while it was a very clean park and the staff were all very pleasant, the rows were very narrow and the sites were extremely close together. We paid a premium price to get one of their biggest sites -- one with a large oak tree on it and affording us a little more elbow room (at least on one side), but privacy was not to be found as the neighbors on our other side were only an awning's width away and not only could we hear their furnace blasting on and off all night, we could also hear the tv shows they were watching and every evening we got to listen to them calling out the answers to Wheel of Fortune. They also had a German Shepherd dog that barked at everything that went by and on top of all that, they were smokers and used some sort of heavily perfumed air freshner in their RV and so we were constantly inundated with floral scented tobacco smoke wafting through our windows -- oh how delightful. To make matters worse, the sites right across from us were used for the overnighters and so every morning and night we got to hear the rumble of diesel engines. Those pull-thru sites were so close to us that if the occupants didn't pull in far enough, we had a hard time getting our car out of our own driveway. Needless to say, we were very happy to move on and most likely won't be returning to that park. Luckily, we only were at the RV at night to sleep. Most of the time we were out and about visiting, eating and shopping.

A happy event occured while we were there -- Frank's brother Mike moved back to town and that gave us a chance to catch up on too many years of separation. He used to live in Biloxi, Mississippi, but decided to leave after Katrina pretty much wiped out the entire city. He was one of the luckier residents in that his house was still standing and didn't sustain irrepairable damage. After he completed the repairs, he was able to sell the house very quickly and he moved back to San Antonio and moved into a lovely, brand new, two-story home complete with a balcony that had a lovely view.

While in town we also got to enjoy the company of Frank's high school and college buddies and we enjoyed a night playing Texas Hold 'Em even though we lost a few chips in the process. We also got together for a delightful barbecue on Super Bowl Sunday and enjoyed watching the game on a huge, large screen HDTV -- wow -- what a picture and what a treat!

We ate out almost every meal for a whole month and that did serious damage to our waistlines, so early on we started a serious exercise walking program in hopes of burning up some of those excess calories. I used my new iPod Shuffle (my Christmas gift) to enjoy some music along the way and we walked all over the area around Sea World. By the end of the month we were up to almost four miles in an hour.

Our shopping excursions included looking for lots of things, but one thing in particular was the search for a really good chair for Frank. He wanted a comfortable and supportive chair to replace the barrel chair that came with our Lazy Daze RV. The barrel chair, while fairly comfortable, didn't hold up well to daily use and soon lost it's seat cushion and back support. We looked at several Euro style recliners, but alas, they were just too large to fit in our teeny living room and still leave room for any kind of an aisle. So, we had to find some kind of alternative seating for him. When Frank worked at Freescale, he sat in a Herman Miller Aeron chair and after five years of use he said that it was still very comfortable and gave him excellent back support, so off we went to the Herman Miller store and we ordered him a new Aeron chair that should be ready to pick up around mid-March.

Another shopping expedition took us on a search for a comfortable walking shoe for Frank. He wears a size 13 narrow -- hard to find in men's shoes, so we looked high and low with no luck. Finally, he tried on a pair of the "Free" running shoes from Nike and really liked it and was even able to find a pair in his size. He's already put many miles on them and says they are more comfortable than any other running shoes that he's worn.

Frank made me include the fact that he was not the only one shopping while we were in San Antonio. I dragged him all over town looking at rugs for the living room and never did find one that I liked and that would fit the area.

We both enjoyed a outing to the new Sportmen's Warehouse -- a huge camping/sporting goods store -- and I was finally able to find a very comfortable day pack to use on our longer hikes

Certainly the best part of our time in San Antonio was time spent with Frank's Mom and all his family. We gathered often to eat, visit and play cards and just generally catch up with each other's lives. One of our gatherings included a huge surprise party for our brother-in-law David. He turned 50 this month and his wife (Frank's sister) Katy gave him a grand celebration. We were in on the deception as Frank & I took he and Katy to an early dinner while the rest of the family decorated and got the food ready. We were supposed to be gone for two hours, but David breezed through his meal in about 15 minutes and the rest of us, trying to stretch out the time, just kept eating slower and slower. After an hour we came up with the idea of a quick stop at Walmart -- always good to kill some time -- and made it to the party with perfect timing. We think he was surprised although the mass of cars in front of the house gave him a big hint that something was up.

We said goodbye to all the family that night as we were leaving the next day to get on the road again. We had a great time while there are are looking forward to our next visit -- most likely in April over Easter weekend.