My Weekend (an actual weekend!) Getaway

Okay, so about that TWO DAY WEEKEND – Chelsea and I woke up early on Saturday and headed down to the Natural Bridge Caverns outside of San Antonio. These caverns were nice, but not quite as magnificent as the ones in Carlsbad. They get their name from a natural rock bridge that formed (or rather remained) after a sinkhole created a huge gap that exposed the caverns. We went on a guided tour of the caverns, which was an interesting experience. At these caverns you are not allowed to explore on your own – you have to pay for some type of tour. The tours can be upwards of 40 people – fortunately we were on the first tour of the day, so there were only about 20 of us (including a baby… who brings a baby into a cave?). The guide pointed out lots of interesting features and shared a lot of history, but she did it using a portable microphone (echo much?) and we only stopped at designated stopping points (you could pause for a quick picture here and there, but anything longer and you were holding up the people behind you). These caverns were also much wetter than the ones in Carlsbad, so it got pretty warm and humid in some of the rooms. All in all it was a nice stop, but I still definitely recommend the Carlsbad Caverns over anything else.

Jellyfish!

After that we went to our hotel and checked in (3 hours early!), then took a bus to the Market Square. We wandered around the different shops for a couple of hours, watched people performing traditional Mexican dances, bought margaritas at a food stand and discovered that there are apparently no open container laws in the general area from the Riverwalk to the Alamo.

We made our way down to the Riverwalk and did a lap (while perusing the stores and restaurants), then finally settled on The Original Mexican Restaurant for an early dinner. Chelsea and I both got chicken enchiladas with a cream sauce (suiza?) – SO GOOD! Definitely no room for the ice cream we were planning on getting afterward (which is sad considering that now the nearest ice cream is 30 minutes away).

A scene in Miss Congeniality was filmed here.

From there we went to the Rivercenter Mall and wandered around for a while. We stopped in a bookstore where some author was trying to promote her book in a very… in-your-face kind of way. Chelsea was able to duck out of the way, but I got the full blast. She started by pointing out a couple pictures on the walls of her with famous people, and then took me to the shelf where her book was on display. She thrust a copy of her book into my hands, said that if I like reading then I will love her book, told me to sit and read the first chapter, and finished by saying, “if you think you’ve had a hard life, just WAIT until you read about mine!” Umm… thanks, but no thanks. I held onto the book and walked around for a couple minutes while she started her spiel for the next pair of girls to walk in, then casually walked past her display and slid it back onto the shelf as nonchalantly as I could… and that’s when I heard (shouted from across the store), “I SAW YOU PUT MY BOOK BACK. WHAT, YOU DON’T LIKE MY BOOK?” Come on, lady, I was trying to be polite! Needless to say we left soon after that.

Right after that charming encounter we ran into Really Tall Guy (we met a lot of interesting people and didn’t get a single person’s name, so we gave everyone nicknames). Really Tall Guy was, as you might have guessed, really tall. No – like REALLY tall, as in 6’8’’ tall. He was working at a jewelry store but was standing outside trying to get people to come inside, and he saw us wandering aimlessly and said that we looked lost. I was pretty much staring straight up in order to see his face. We chatted with him for a couple minutes but then went on our way. Okay maybe that’s not as exciting as I thought it was. But he had to be the tallest guy I’ve ever met – I think that’s exciting!

After Really Tall Guy was Bearded Wine Guy. Bearded Wine Guy worked at a tropical winery outside the mall and beckoned us in for free wine tasting. He was super nice, funny, and generous with the free samples. We tried a bunch of different fruity wines – raspberry, kiwi, passion fruit (!), etc – and then Chelsea bought a bottle of wine (and he gave her a free corksicle), and we each bought wine slushies (which he gave us half off). He also asked if we had plans that night and gave me his VIP access card to a club called Celebs. Apparently all of the employees on the Riverwalk get this VIP card, which gets you and a friend to the front of the line and neither of you have to pay the cover charge. Heck yeah! So that was our new late-night plan.

After leaving the winery we killed some time by wandering around in front of the Alamo (with our wine slushies, of course). Then we went to a comedy club at 8:30 – all three guys were really funny, and it was Chelsea’s first time at a comedy club! Our stomach muscles were still hurting the next day from laughing so much. We got out of the comedy club around 10:30 and decided to check out this Celebs place (only a few blocks away). Chelsea was getting nervous about using the VIP card, but I just said screw it, whipped out the card from Bearded Wine Guy, walked up to Doorman, said “I have a VIP card, and she’s with me!” and hoped like hell he didn’t question me. Fortunately Doorman directed us inside without saying anything! However, there was a woman standing there who asked the name we were under. I momentarily froze, thinking that “Bearded Wine Guy” would not be an acceptable response. But Doorman came to our rescue just in time and said that I had a VIP card and could just go right in. YEAH!

Spice Girls on the wall... talk about celebs!

This club was surprisingly large. The first room that we walked into had a pretty big bar, a stage for karaoke, and lots of seating. From there we saw doors leading to another room which also had a bar, as well as a mini dance floor and some random seating around the room – turns out that was the hookah lounge. It was a while before we realized that there was a third room upstairs with the dance floor (and another bar)! We definitely wished we had discovered the dance floor sooner, but we had a blast the entire time anyways. Some of the people we met that night: Barman, Air Force Guys (3), Tall Guy (not REALLY tall, but maybe 6’5’’), Awkward Guy, Hookah Guy, and Tall Guy’s Roommate. Quite the collection of guys that night.

The next day we slept in until 7:30ish (4 hours of sleep on our day off??) and went down to breakfast where there were TEXAS-SHAPED WAFFLES. I’m starting to like the way that Texans do things. Sure, sometimes it can be a bit in your face, but way to be proud about where you come from by having Texas-shaped waffles every morning. I guess places like Colorado and Wyoming do that, too, so way to go guys. After that it was a slow morning until we finally got out of bed (the second time around), checked out, and went to the San Antonio Botanical Garden. Chelsea and I both wore dresses in the hopes of them making us feel more with it, but I don’t think that was the case. In fact, I don’t know if there were two people at the botanic garden who were less interested in plants than we were that morning. Whatever… it was still nice, and we tried.

As for the rest of the week, we finished up our second round of point counts, so I was mostly doing those for a few days. Tuesday was particularly nice because Diane and I were able to drive fairly close to most of our point count locations, so we got them done a lot more quickly than we otherwise would have. Wednesday was a different story – Chelsea and I had to walk to every point (14 on that property), so we ended up walking over 16km that day! Oh, and there were lightning storms early Wednesday morning which pushed back our start time by an hour. It also meant that the dirt roads were completely wet and muddy, so I got to experience driving a Jeep with tires caked in an inch of mud and sliding all over the road. It was kind of fun, actually, but crazy how little control you can have over something that big. Thursday there were more early-morning storms, but it cleared up in time to head out at the usual 6:15am. Stormy mornings are nice because it stays relatively cool for much of the day, but ALL of the vegetation is wet, so even if it’s not actively raining, you still get soaked. Yesterday (Friday) felt like the first real day of summer – hot and humid all day. You know it’s a bad sign when you think the temperature is perfect and it’s only 6:45am. The weird thing is that it’s kind of backwards from how it was in the jungle – much hotter (not much canopy to provide constant shade) but much less humid (I would literally soak an entire outfit in sweat in the jungle just from the insane amount of humidity – here I only sweat a little bit and pretty much only in the normal places). I don’t know which I prefer more – HOT and humid (Texas) or hot and HUMID (jungle). I guess I need to wait until it really is the middle of summer before I can make that call!

Male BCVI just hanging out - can you see the pink on his legs? I was slightly too far away to get a good shot of his bands.

Last night was another fun night out – all four of us (Michaela, Marisa, Chelsea, and me) went out for Mexican food (I am always craving Mexican food here) and to see The Great Gatsby. It was the first time that all four of us went out, which was really nice, but also kind of sad that we were all pooped by 9:30 when the movie got out (to be fair, Michaela and Marisa still had to work today). Chelsea and I have plans to tan in the backyard (more than just our hands and faces) and invest in a kiddie pool, since the pond out back is for fish, not feet.

Also, and it sounds like I’ll be going to Possum Kingdom again with Chelsea, Ashley, and Diane on Monday! Should but fun if it’s not excruciatingly hot and my feet aren’t still hurting from this week’s point counts!

Oh yes, an update on the bee situation: we caulked up the gap in the living room ceiling where the bees where getting in but they continued to swarm outside. A couple days later some guys from the refuge came and caulked the gap outside, but they said they didn’t really want to do anything to remove them since they want to have pollinators around (we’d prefer it if they were around somewhere else rather than our living room ceiling, but oh well…). Later Michaela caulked some gaps in the wooden beams that we saw them crawling into from the outside. The next day the number of bees quadrupled – they were all flying around and crawling all over the beams trying to find new ways in (we think we trapped the queen inside). So now it’s just a waiting game to see if and where they get in next! Anyone have suggestions for getting rid of bees?