Hurlshort

Day 6 - Today was the first day I really felt like we were on vacation. We went out and explored San Antonio, and it was a great adventure. The day started with us trying to get to the Alamo. We took a break under a veranda for about 30 minutes while a passing storm dumped buckets of water, and then continued on. The heat was still in the 90's and the humidity was high, so it was always nice when we found a decent air conditioned building. Here are some pics of the Alamo: We also toured an impressive cathedral where the leaders of the Alamo are interred. After that we did a boat tour of the Riverwalk. It was very interesting, but it put us in the sun for awhile so we sought out some ice cream and a cool building after that. I decided to try and find a decent place for some local beers, but most of the Riverwalk was tourist trap stuff. There was one good location about a mile away called The Friendly Spot, so I convinced my wife that it would be a good place to check out. The walk was tough, and on the way there my son fell asleep, my daughter started to whine, and my wife started to look skeptical. We got to the place, and there was no air conditioning! It was actually a very neat outdoor bar and grill, and there was even a playground for the kids. This would have been ideal in better weather, but alas my whole family did not dig it. I won my wife over with a grapefruit beer. My daughter cheered up a bit with some iced tea and I got myself there beer of the day, a pale ale. But then Logan woke up, and he was not happy. I did a couple laps with him in the stroller while I drank my beer to keep him from total meltdown, and then I grabbed a last beer. We also ate a couple appetizers that were great, a IPA hummus dip and some mushroom tacos. Logan's fuse got shorter and shorter, so I finished up my local IPA and we hit the road. We stopped off at a used video game store to enjoy the AC, and suddenly Logan was happy again. So the two beers, coupled with the heat and not eating much, went straight to my head. I was close to buying an old SNES, but my wife convinced me otherwise. The kids got some hard to find Skylanders, and now my son wants to go home and play it. He doesn't get that we are 2,000 miles away. I happily stumbled my way back to the city center with my family, and we stopped off at a Guadalajara Grill for an enchilada and a margarita. I was feeling pretty good. We grabbed a bus home and were in bed shortly after. It was a great day.

I was surprised as well. We didn't bring passports on this trip, and I don't even have one for my youngest, so I'd be hard pressed to prove citizenship for my kids. But I assume they are just looking for things suspicious, we were travelling alone Interstate 10 and it really is a stone's throw away from the border for quite a few miles.

Hucksterism 101: The rubes don't pay to see worthless, un-notable items. I realized upon re-reading this it could be seen as me calling Hurl a rube, not really my intent. I think these roadside shows can be interesting if you know what you're getting into. But the ballyhoo is there, regardless. I'm happy to play the part of the rube for a buck most days. The cost was small enough to justify it, and it was a nice break from driving. Plus the kids loved it: Oh I forgot to mention we passed through a Border Patrol checkpoint. Thankfully the menacing dog was not interested in our cargo, and we passed through with just a quick question about our citizenship.

I'll be going through Santa Fe on the way back, so I'll keep an eye out for the micro-brewery and church. Day 5 - 600 miles through Texas! Today was the longest drive of the trip, and it was crazy. I got on the road by 6:45 AM, and managed to get 200 miles under us before the kids start to stir and ask to get dressed. They slept through quite a bit of it, so that was great. We passed through El Paso, which was huge. But then for the next 400 miles there was hardly anything. At one point, I went a pretty long stretch without gas. I pulled over to a station in the middle of nowhere, but they were charging $4.00 a gallon! I still had a quarter of a tank, so I figured I'd stop at another. 50 miles went by and there was nothing. The next town was about 40 miles out, but I estimated I only had enough gas for about 30 miles. I stressed and stressed. I checked google for possible side roads that might take me to gas. The light went on with about 20 miles left to go. I checked to make sure I knew where the hazard lights were, I checked to make sure we had decent cell phone service for roadside assistance, and I kept a sharp eye on the shoulder to look for a decent place to pull over. Somehow we managed to make the town. I filled up, and it turns out that my 30 gallon tank really has about 30.5 gallons in it. Then we hit a tremendous thunderstorm a couple hours out of San Antonio. I white knuckled my way through the torrential downpour as bolts of lightning crackled around me. The kids actually slept through it, which was for the best. We pulled into San Antonio and found our park just down the street from where the Spurs play. It's a great park, it has a bunch of stuff for the kids and is more alive than all the other parks we have been in. Tomorrow we will take a bus to the city center and explore. Here's a pic of us at a roadside rest stop:

I am now trying to attract a cricket that has snuck into my ceiling vent with some peanut butter. He is right above my bed. I opened up the vent but he's hiding in a crevasse.

It's kind of crazy how long baseball teams control the rights to players. But at least the arbitration process is there to keep young stars from getting totally robbed.

Not this trip! We are getting pretty close when we go through Missouri and Kansas, but then we drop back down. I do plan on taking a northern route through the states is a couple years, depending on finances. I have a ton of stuff to see on the Eastern seaboard.

Day 4 - So today was hot. Too hot to do much of anything. We spent the day moving between the RV and the little clubhouse they have at the RV park. I did go running at 6 AM, and it was already very warm. I also spent the day trying to convince my son to poop, and fed him apples and bran muffins. We go through this on every trip. I'm going to post a few pictures from yesterday. Here we are entering New Mexico: And here we are set up at the site: Once the sun went down a bit, we headed over to a pizza and winery place for dinner. It was fantastic, and they had some great gelato to finish us off. Tomorrow we get up early and start a very long drive to San Antonio. It is actually only supposed to be 90 degrees out there, so thankfully it will be a little less scorching. All they way across Texas, whoa boy. Thankfully I have a ton of pizza to eat for lunch tomorrow, so that's a plus.

I accept your apology Volourn, thank you. I totally agree with you that players should have the flexibility to opt out of contracts just like the owners. Thankfully players in the NBA do have a fair amount of control over their careers, much more than Football and Baseball.

I don't appreciate you accusing me of supporting slavery. That is a very ugly thing to say about a person. You don't need to be blatantly disrespectful when discussing sports.

Nobody other than people in Cleveland bashed him for leaving Cleveland. He was bashed for handling it in a terribly tacky way, but that is entirely different. Also we didnt even have an NBA thread back then, so stop transferring your misguided aggression toward the media on us Obsidianites.

I've never bashed Lebron, and no one here has seriously done that either. Why u lie?

My son was born during the summer of 2010. In 2011 my wife tore her ACL right before our vacation, so we had to scratch that one.

Well, looks like the league is going to change a bit, Lebron is looking to leave Miami. I wonder where he will end up? I'm rooting for the Warriors to get him.

Day 3 - Ok, we finally are hitting the more scenic areas, so I'll try to get some good environment shots tomorrow. It's also the first non driving day of the trip, which is great. Today we passed into New Mexico. There were quite a few clouds in the sky, and some loked like rain clouds, but you could actually see the rain evaporating before it got low enough to do anything. We also passed a ton of huge dust storm twister things, they were crazy looking. I wasn't going to stop and take pictures in case they turned my way, sorry. When we got into Las Cruces, we decided to trek a mile to a really good Mexican restaurant for dinner. Afterward we walked to a beautiful minor basilica called San Albino. Just for ManifestedISO: We also stopped off at this odd roadside attraction called The Thing. Spoiler alert, the Thing was a mummified mother and child. I could not get a good photo because of the glare, but I did take a picture of this gun. I'm not sure I believe the sign that says it is priceless, it cost a buck to get into this attraction: They definitely had some weird taste at this place: I did have a bit of a flash of the movie Nothing But Trouble, but we did the Humpty Dance and they let us go in the end.

They are light truck tires, and they are goodyear, so I actuallu got a decent price. Unfortunately we we really just passing through Arizona, so not much sightseeing. I should come back here in the winter.

Ok, I bought it, so you better be right.

You can't really compare an institution like Nintendo to Crytek.

Her hair is a bit of a mess.

I think my biggest issue with futbol is the extra time. We have the technology to keep track of time accurately. It shouldn't be a surprise at the 90 minute mark.

We are in Marana. I'll look into the Boneyard, we've got a pretty easy drive today so we definitely have time for stops. Today we head into New Mexico, where I'm guessing the Breaking Bad feeling will ratchet up a bit. I went for a run this morning at 6:30 AM and it was already hot. Yikes! Now we are eating breakfast before we hit the road. The internet connection at this park is fantastic, btw. I could even get on Steam and do some stuff.

If you had told the US they would have a win and a draw two games into the group play when the World Cup started, they would have been overjoyed. It was a tough way to tie, but they are still in great shape. They need a decent showing against Germany and hope that Ghana/Portugal is a close game.

Oddly enough I was driving by the Giants-Diamondbacks game in Phoenix just as it was finishing. Bummer I couldn't work that into the trip.

Day 2 - We rolled out of the park before 8 AM and hit a local Target for all of our missing supplies. Then we started to drive. And drive. And drive. Seriously, driving through the deserts of California and Arizona is not the most exciting thing. It was pretty cool when we hit the parts of Arizona with the giant cacti, I'll try and get a picture of them tomorrow. I tried to convince Logan to take some desert pictures at a rest stop, but it was 105 degrees Fahrenheit, so he put the kibosh on that. We stopped off in Phoenix for some Ice Cream at a place called Melt. It was this odd neighborhood of artsy shops that looked like it had once been a pretty bad part of town. The ice cream was great, and from there we hit our destination a bit outside of Tuscon. We went straight to the pool. Now we are eating some wontons and watching a movie with the AC on full blast. One more driving day and then I get a break in New Mexico.

When I broke my leg a few years back playing hockey, as they wheeled me off the ice, I turned to my friend who had recently hit that age and I said, "This is what happens when you turn 30." So enjoy, it ain't easy.