| Hope and a Future Continued |
Days 13 to 16SAN ANTONIO – We arrived in San Antonio around noon and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Hyatt, a hotel that I had stayed before on a business trip. It has a high atrium center with rivers and pools flowing through it, and bridges. The elevators are glass pill looking things (see photo below) These elevators do 0 to 60 in three seconds. If you have an inside room in the hotel, your window looks down into the atrium from above. Then, the bottom floor opens up to the famous San Antonio Riverwalk. It’s a really great place to stay if you’re ever in San Antonio.
Here’s a shot of Lindsey and Rachel from the bottom floor. You can see the elevators behind them, going up.
 The hotel happens to have a swimming pool – on the roof above the 11th floor. In this picture, you can see the tops of the buildings in downtown San Antonio.
 And of course, what trip to San Antonio would be complete without the obligatory visit to the Alamo!
 I really do enjoy this town. The Riverwalk is such a unique place. It feels like a European town because all of the architecture around the river feels OLD. The growth of plants is old, the moss is old, it’s just dang old. Here are the kids on one of the many bridges on the river as a boat is passing under them. I think they were chanting, “Texas stinks, Texas stinks”, but I couldn’t exactly make out what they were saying.
 Here we all are, feeling comfy and plump after a nice Mexican brunch. That dog – his name is Lucas and belongs to the guy who took our picture.
 Later that evening, in the dark, we loaded the gang up on one of the boats and floated around the river.
 LOUISIANA STATE LINE – Weirdest “visit” so far on the trip. As we drove across the Louisiana state line, Eva informed us that Nature was calling. So we stopped at the state welcome center which had a really nice set of facilities. Everybody went in to take care of their business, while I wandered out back towards the swamp that was behind the buildings. First thing I noticed was a really interesting sign, which I wanted everyone to gather around for a nice blog picture. Note the sign behind them.
 After the picture, I REALLY wanted to try to get a good look at some gators. I noticed that they had a cool suspended walkway that went out over the bayou, through the dense trees, off to the left side of the pictures above. I talked everyone into walking out to the end to see if we could see some of the critters. As we started walking, we noticed in the grass the hugest, ugliest locusts walking around – EVERYWHERE. They averaged 3 big inches in length, and were left over from one of the Egyptian plagues. I’m also convinced that some of them are waiting around to fulfill prophesy in the book of Revelation. Some of the kids instantly freaked (whose 3-letter names will go unmentioned). Brian had come out of the car in his bare feet, so he was now walking through this minefield of disgusting insects. KC was highstepping his way across the grass. Everybody was feeling queezy – especially all of us Californian’s who really don’t see that many bugs as the norm, except the occasional swarm of flies generated by dairy dung.
 We made it to the walkway. Here’s a picture on the early part of it. The farther we walked down, we noticed these huge Banana Spiders – EVERYWHERE! Then, as if this bathroom stop wasn’t bad enough, the battery for my video camera slipped off the back of the camera, and after two sickening bounces (in slow motion, of course), it fell into the swamp. That was the end of our camera battery. Then, looking up above our heads, we saw a nest of 5 big banana spiders. That was about all we could take. we all ran for the pavement, passing all of the locusts in the grass as we went. Oh and it was 99 degrees, with over 90% humidity. And right there, as we passed the Welcome Center was a big sign that said, “Welcome to Louisiana”!
Tomorrow, we finally arrive at the Gulf of Mexico.
Until then…
10:04 PM - Aug. 9, 2007
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Description This is the sequal to the original Hopeandafuture site. If you want to see my real sight go to http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/ hopeandafuture/ Home User Profile Archives Recent Entries - Le Grand Finale! - We have lost track of the number of days..... - Days 17 to 22 - Days 13 to 16 |