San Antonio to Port Aransas.

Track. El son de la negra - The mariachi vargas de tecalitlan.
"Remember the alamo!" Sam Houston.
 Day 29.

  A late start but we left the canyon and passed our new friends about 10 miles down the road. We made it to San Antonio and our luxury RV park after another Mammoth drive and were straight into the cold pool. The weather had been overcast all day but it still felt close. Becs went off with 2 weeks worth of laundry and a fist full of quarters. She returned gingerly with several pink items, including a little brother baby gro, now looking a little more little sister!

Our neighbours were really friendly and gave us lots of advice for our journey east and some camping guides. After dark we tentitively decided to go into San Antonio, san antone to its friends, as there was an annual fiesta being held. A taxi company quoted us 60 bucks one way so we thought we'd drive it.

 It was a much bigger city than we had anticipated and took us 30mins to get out of the sprawling suburbs, along the 6 lane highways and spaghetti junctions into the city centre. When the parking places all seemed to have height restrictions, and there was clearly a carnival spirit in the air, we just pulled our very conspicuous vehicle into a car park adjacent to Hilton and decided to pretend we hadnt seen the signs to pay 60 dollars for the privilege. One of the triumphs of the trip so far, as in true Ozzy Osbourne style, we had parked around the corner from the Alamo.

A short walk away was the stunning Riverside walk. Again, in total triumph we sat in a lovely Italian resturant, both boys sleeping, and had a fantastic meal. Dylan woke up at one point to go to the restroom and have some bread. They were both so good we thought we must be dreaming. Had some pictures outside the Alamo on our walk back and then did a little victory dance by the RV as there was no ticket.  A smooth drive home and then straight to bed before our luck ran out!

Day 30

In fact, the luck did seem to have run out for becs in the morning a bit. She decided to take advantage of all the boys having a lie-in and go for a jog around the park, only to sustain a calf strain within a few metres ( a schoolgirl error, although the strains are more frequent now than they were then! )

 We started another long drive south to Port Aransas, beach playground to the Texans. It happened that our visit co-insided with SANDFEST 2013, a festival loosely based around sand sculptures. We had a swim in the pool on arrival at the RV park and then a walk down to the beach to check it out. Again the USA never ceases to surprise us and it was really really cool.

Had a meal out for a treat as it was Friday night and we had driven nearly 1000 miles in the last 3 days. Luckily Texas is the place to do lots of mileages at 3.2 dollars per gallon. Had deep-fried oysters and a couple of Shiner Bock beers  whilst Solomon drew a crowd and Dylan danced in the bar to Jonny Cash. We sat by a lovely couple who were cattle ranchers and peanut growers. We decided to stay another day to have a break from the road and embrace sandfest some more.