Saturday, March 30th – Sunday, March 31st, 2013
We had a mellow musical morning with Nat and Kate listening to some relaxing classical music to get the day started. We tossed the Frisbee back and forth in their backyard, “supervised” Nat as he worked on his garden and had an overall relaxing time hanging out with the Austin Clan. A lazy day led to an early night.
It was the last day of March, the first day of our journey where we would be venturing out in completely new territory, and also Easter Sunday (it showed up early that year). We rolled out of Austin and made the voyage to San Antonio via I-35 South to I-10 West. We swung by the large and intense convenience store, Buc-ee’s before entering new territory.
Upon our arrival in San Antonio, we made The Alamo our first stop. It was located in the center of the city and was much smaller than I had expected.
We walked around the shops downtown before seeing the famous, and touristy River Walk. There were a lot of baby ducklings swimming around and the food from the fancy restaurants was smelling really good. I was half tempted to go dumpster diving for BBQ ribs. It would have been worth it, since it made the tuna sandwich I ate in the van seem sad in comparison.
We left River Walk and bought a Paper Mache wrestler baby, later named El Poopador, which would become our van mascot.
We debated going up in the Tower of the Americas to get a nice view, but it was $10.95 per person, which was a bit steep for just a view of town. There was plenty to see on ground level, so we continued exploring before continuing our journey towards Marfa, TX.
We took the 481 Loop to Junction, TX, and were surprised to see a sign “Introducing 3G”, which had been around for quite a while, back at home. I was on the lookout for armadillos since I had seen so many of them at that point, but they were all dead. There was hardly anything around, and we originally parked in an empty parking lot to a tiny hospital. Having flashbacks of Johnson City, we decided to keep driving until we found a huge truck stop (the only vehicles in sight being tractor trailers), which turned out the be a nice, quiet place to sleep. In the days that were to follow, we would check out more desert scenery in Texas before moving on to a brand new state that neither of us had ever been to, New Mexico.
Jump Back to Part 09: Bats, Bloat & Fusion
Jump Ahead to Part 11: Marfa Lights & White Sands
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Start Over at Part 01: The Blue Bubble, Freebies & A Rude Awakening
Stubbs Rambles On 