Roadtrip: San Antonio, Houston, and Denton

Now where was I?

Oh yes. San Antonio. After a breakfast of pancakes, David, Zara and I set out from the Spradlin's home to venture into downtown San Antonio to visit the Alamo and the Riverwalk. We had been warned to keep our expectations really low for the Alamo--it is pretty small--but I still found it to be an interesting old building--mostly because I love old buildings.




The thing I always find interesting about certain places is how they've become such famous tourist attractions. I mean, think about it. Why the Alamo? But apparently we aren't supposed to forget and I think they're doing a good job with that. I'm still not sure what happened there, but at least I can say I've been there now, right?

Just a few blocks from the Alamo is the Riverwalk area of San Antonio which is just what it's name describes: a walkway along the river. It's also home to dozens of restaurants and hotels. Though I wish the sidewalk had been a bit wider (especially with a baby in a stroller), I found the Riverwalk to be quite charming. And some lucky person probably found my yellow changing pad (which I adored) which was lost somewhere between the Alamo and the Riverwalk. You're welcome. (I bought myself a new one anyway.)

You can even ride a boat around the river if you want.

After spending the majority of the morning/afternoon in San Antonio, we were ready to the leave the hot burning heat of the Texas sun for our nice air conditioned car to drive a few hours east to Houston, where we had arranged to stay with our friends from Hawaii, the Siebachs.

When we left Hawaii, Gabby had just gotten pregnant with their son, Eldin.

And this little munchkin was not even in the works yet.

So it was a lot of fun to get these two crazy kids together and watch them have fun chasing each other (Zara was still just learning to walk but she was real determined to catch Eldin) and splashing each other in the kiddie pool. Best of all, Gabby made her delicious homemade chimichangas. Man, I missed her Mexican food. (And Luke was very glad we came to visit because he said that it had been a long time since Gabby had cooked.) We're happy to come by anytime.

Since our next destination (Denton) wasn't a very long drive away, we decided to spend the next morning in downtown Houston. After weighing our options, we decided to visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science which is one of the most popular museums in America. It was a great museum, albeit a tad expensive (having gotten used to the Smithsonian's admission price of nothing).

We started off our visit in the museum's gigantic butterfly enclosure which was filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of butterflies of all different types and colors.
It was quite fun to watch all these butterflies flying about.

We also visited lots of stuffed animals and dinosaurs. We didn't have much time to see the rest of the museum but I was impressed with what we saw. On our way out, we stopped at the museum's onsite McDonald's to grab a snack before hitting the road again. A Korean family sat next to us who we, of course, had to talk to and tell them how much we had loved living in Seoul.

Right next to the museum is what I swear is a miniature replica of the Washington monument and reflection pond on the mall in D.C. I don't know why Houston built themselves one too but there you go.

David and Zara being all cute and father-daughtery together. (It was Father's Day, after all.)

So we hit the road toward the Dallas/Fort Worth area to visit Kara and her little family in Denton. Outside of Houston we drove past this gigantic statue of Sam Houston which is apparently the largest statue of a single person in the world. I mean, that's just how they do it in Texas, right?

I didn't take any photos of Denton because I'm an idiot. Anyway, we arrived at Kara's house around 4 or 5 in the evening and after saying our hellos, we hit the road again to drive to Babe's, the Nelsen's favorite local eatery. Except that it was closed. So we drove back to Denton to try another restaurant but every place had an insane wait time because it was Father's Day and why hadn't we thought of that sooner? Being that one of us was pregnant and very hungry and the other was just insanely hungry and cranky, we decided to drive back to Kara's house and order Papa John's pizza. Though Kara assures me that Babe's is a great place--and I'd love to try it again someday--that Papa John's really hit the spot that night.