San Antonio

Our first family vacation was successful :o) Hard, but successful nonetheless. Friday we arrived at the hotel and then went downtown. We took a Riverwalk cruise and looked around at shops, then let Dixie choose the restaurant for dinner...she chose McDonalds.

The Riverwalk was beautiful; I wish Dallas had a similar setup. I'd probably spend more time there. We saw San Antonio's oldest tree (a cypress), the first restaurant to set up shop on the Riverwalk, Saint Antonio, and ducks. That night the hotel hosted a "Dive in Movie", so we swam and watched "Night At The Museum" under the stars.

Saturday we went to Natural Bridge Caverns. The tour we took included 180 steps! Dixie did great; no real complaints. We saw all sorts of rock formations, including soda straws and bacon ribbons :o) I wanted to touch EVERYTHING, but apparently it's a felony. The place was so vast and huge. We experienced lights out for 2 minutes...I've never seen such darkness!

The last picture is of the hole that the explorer guys went through to find this place. Another tour includes repelling down one of these holes and exploring the cave without the lights on...HELL NO!

After the caverns, we went to Natural Bridge Wildlife Safari- a drive through park where animals supposedly come to your car. The ostrich was the only one who came! We also got to pet baby goats (which Adam ate for dinner later that night at a CRAZY Mexican restaurant) and a pig :o)

Creepy

Sunday was all Sea World. I must admit, my eyes got teary when I saw Shamu. I've ALWAYS wanted to see a whale, and I was just so excited. We also saw a dolphin/beluga/acrobat show, spent lots of time at the waterpark, and fed dolphins :o)

After Sea World, we went to the Alamo and other different shops. Then we ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. This one was 3 stories tall and the absolute coolest! We ate on the third floor, which was like eating in the canopy of the jungle. They had robotic animals that "talked" every few minutes, and there was a thunderstorm (complete with lightning but no rain) every half hour.

The hard part of this trip was not seeing my husband. Adam was there, but he was a parent. We were both parents. Parents on vacation is TOTALLY different than a married couple on vacation...took some getting used to. I was also raised to thank people for anything and everything I got, which was nothing like this. It took me being an adult to save up and go on a vacation like this, same with Adam. He even thanked me. He was the only one who did. All of the souvenir purchases and fun activities, not one thank you. This upset me, and I didn't know if I was expecting too much by needing to hear it or what. That was the hard part.