Friday, May 29, 2015

Family Road Trip - Day 4

Tuesday, May 26
Miles Traveled: 561 miles (1780 total)
States Visited: Texas
Cost of Gas: $2.99, $2.49 (two places in Texas)
Breakfast: Good hotel breakfast
Lunch: Fast food in San Antonio River Walk Mall
Dinner: Leftovers and snacks in hotel room
Sites: Alamo (drive by), San Antonio River Walk
Lodging: America's Best Value Inn in Winnie, TX

This morning the kids were impressed because the waffle iron at the breakfast buffet made waffles shaped like Texas. None of the other waffle irons had that kind of state pride.

After breakfast the kids swam in the hotel pool. Our kids always love this the best about any place we stay, but it was so muggy for me sitting on the side life guarding, that I made them leave after 45 minutes. We still had a long way to drive.

We drove across Texas all day. We stopped for lunch in San Antonio at a mall on the San Antonio River. We walked a small part of the River Walk. There were cypress trees there, and cypress knees--which Anika thought looked like a flock of ducks. She was delighted when one of them turned out to be a duck. We nodded to the outside wall of the Alamo, but did not visit. It was hot.

The mall where we ate lunch


From the weather channel in the breakfast room we had learned that there was flooding in Houston from all the rain. We had to pass through Houston on our way across Texas. But this turned out to be the only day so far that it did not rain on us while driving, and we had no trouble in Houston, aside from the confusing toll and HOV lanes.

Back when my parents took our family on a road trip across the country we not only had a larger van, though with more kids in it, but we also had no culture of wearing seat belts. I'm in favor of seat belts, but it does take away your option of sprawling out and lying on the floor and such, like we used to do. On the other hand, we can now watch movies. I think that's all that kept our kids civilized on these really long driving days. That and reading aloud Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Our hotel in Winnie, Texas was kind of seedy. We were a little grumpy from our long day of driving and didn't feel like going to find a restaurant in this smallish town. So we made do with our left-overs, and continued to feel grumpy. We had enough time to watch "A league of their own" on TV-but we shouldn't have, as that was a stupid movie and kept us from getting a little extra sleep.


3 comments:

Clint C. said...

I haven't seen these cost break-downs since your and Edith's trip to Europe in '95! Glad to see you're still the same.

Mike McBorg said...

I just found this. Fun stuff

PhilHale said...

We've been looking forward to this!