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Published: September 15th 2006
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We have arrived in San Antonio, Texas. Before we got fired from our last job we had planned a short trip into San Antonio to see the sights. We had already booked and paid for a hotel room so rather than cancel out and lose the money we decided to just come to San Antonio and stay a week at a local RV park and use the hotel stay as a break from our trailer. We are in a large RV park mostly full with snowbirds. Lots of license plates from colder climates like Massachusetts and Colorado. Mike’s back continues to get better each day, and hopefully he will be back to normal soon.
We just returned from our excursion into the city. I had booked the hotel on the website Priceline. I got on-line, indicated I wanted a 4 star hotel located in downtown San Antonio and stated I would pay $70 a night. The hotel that took me up on it was the Marriott. I was kind of dismayed at first because over 20 years ago when I was stationed in San Antonio I had stayed at the Marriott and I didn’t think that after 20 years the
hotel would still be first rate. I was very very pleased when we drove up and I realized that a lot of construction had occurred in the time I had been away. They had built a new Marriott hotel (the original was still there, there are now 2 Marriott’s in downtown) and we stayed in the new one. The hotel was so fantastic. A valet parked our truck and our corner room located on the 25th floor had 2 walls which were all window. We had a fantastic view of the city and after dark the city lights were beautiful. Another chunk of construction was the building of a huge shopping mall which was attached to our hotel. We wandered the riverwalk then headed inside the mall. We went to see an IMAX movie called BUGS 3D. All about bugs in the rain forest and with the special 3D glasses the bugs were really up close and personal. After, was Hooter’s for wings (disappointing) then we headed back to the room to enjoy the super-strong water pressure and king-size bed. Next morning we strolled down the street to a very old German delicatessen for breakfast. It had been there since
Spelunking in Carlsbad
Don't we look professional? the 1940’s.
After breakfast we headed out of town to a drive-thru safari park. They gave us a bag of food and sent us into our own little piece of Africa. The safari was very cool. The animals (all herbivores, no meat eaters) are used to being fed from the cars and come right up to you. The only ones intimidating were the ostriches, we made sure our windows were almost completely rolled up when they were around. Some of the animals, such as the Zebra in the picture, had the free food thing down pat. It was a warm, sunny day and things were happening in the park. The males were chasing the females all over the place. At the petting zoo we quickly drew a crowd, but it wasn’t the food they were interested in. What they really wanted was to be scratched! Mike and I each had two goats each and they just couldn’t get enough. Later Mike found an energetic baby that wanted to head butt his hand. He would hold his fist out and the little guy would come running towards it, time after time. I guess kids will be kids! Our week in San Antonio was very nice overall. Got in some good shopping and good sights. But we have been here too long…time to move on.
Our next stop was a very small place called the Caverns of Sonora. A small cavern in west Texas. They even have their own RV park. The cavern is in the middle of the west Texas desert surrounded by deer, antelope, oil and natural gas wells. The cavern tour was interesting and since we were headed to Carlsbad Caverns we decided to do the Sonora Caverns as a warm up. On the drive to Sonora we stopped at a small gas station in the middle. The owner had been collecting autographs and headshots (photos) of all the famous people who had come through there. We saw Johnny Depp, Willie Nelson and Winona Judd plus quite a few country music artists and Mexican stars we didn’t recognize.
Here we are in Roswell, New Mexico, the home of the famous alien crash site. It seemed to take forever to drive out of Texas. That is one big state, it took us 2 days to get from San Antonio to New Mexico. West Texas landscape is very dreary but once we got to the desert of New Mexico the terrain was much more scenic. We stayed 3 days in Roswell which was about 2 days too long. This place may be fun during their alien festival in the summer but during the off season it is just a small town with a dairy industry. We went to the alien crash site museum in town which was kind of interesting. It contained all the documentation about the alleged alien spacecraft crash (do you believe?) and info about alien encounters and abductions. One interesting thing happened during our Roswell visit. A virus infected our computer so Mike took our laptop to a local computer service guy. While he was there another customer came in who looked to be in his 90’s and started chatting with Mike. It turns out he was one of the guys who was involved in the development of the first computer. He was in the army in 1938 and part of the team developing the first computer and the early phases of the internet.
One of our Roswell days was a trip south to Carlsbad Caverns. Talk about shock and awe. Carlsbad is one of the most impressive areas I have ever seen. We spent the entire day in the cavern and signed up for 2 extra tours which took us to undeveloped areas of the cave. The first one was easy, we were given lanterns (candlelight only) and trekked down a side tunnel for 2 hours. The candlelight gave us an idea of what the cave looked like to early cave explorers. The afternoon tour was more exciting in that we were able to climb up and down ropes and ladders.
We saw beautiful cave formations and some areas that still contained some caving equipment from the 1920’s. I think we’ve been infected by the caving bug. What surprised us so much is that we always thought of caves being dirty and smelly with spiders and cobwebs everywhere. In reality the caves were very clean with no evidence of insects or animals. It was a bit dusty but that’s all. Bats do live in some caves but they don’t roost in the lower areas. The part of the cave open to the public is part of a self-guided tour. You walk through an area called the great hall which is large enough to fit 14 Astrodomes. A good measurement is that it took us 1 hour to circle the hall on foot, and we kept a steady pace with no breaks. Carlsbad National Park has over 100 caves, we definitely have to go back for more caving.
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Karen Mall
non-member comment
The descent will cure your caving bug
Hi, You two are just all over the place. I envy your travels! I saw the movie The Descent. Scary and gorey and will cure anyone's desire to go deep into a cave. Yvonne and I are great. Thinking of moving...more details will come when I know more...xoxo