Texas or Bust

It's the moment you've all been waiting for...my Texas post.  On Mon, Jan. 2, Deeds and I launched off on a cross country adventure.  Remember the state of the car for the drive from Utah to B-town?  Similar scenario, but for 22 hours (1460miles) now instead of 10.  No A/C (heater blowing constantly, windows down 95% of the way), no cruise control, and no sun visor on the passenger side.  Call me MacGyver, but I fixed that last problem.  Nothing that a hair clip, piece of dental floss, and a few sheet of paper won't solve!  Literally a life saver!

So picture Deeds and I driving through the middle of nowhere, windows down so there is zero talking going on, no music because the CD player is broken and no radio stations to be found, and you will have a pretty good idea of how we were rollin'.  After the sun went down the first day, we did rig up my iPod docking station as speakers for Deeds laptop, and we watched HP 7.1.  We stopped in Las Cruces, NM that first night.  We slept in and took it real easy the next day.  We got to San Antonio around 6pm if I remember correctly on Tuesday night.  We checked into our hotel and headed straight to Lulu's Cafe.  Deeds had seen this place on some sort of food show, and it supposedly has the best chicken fried steak in the U.S.  It was entirely too greasy for me, but the mashed potatoes and rolls were sure good!  They also have cinnamon rolls that are bigger than your face, but we didn't get one of those.

On Wednesday, we headed over to the San Antonio temple to do a session.  Note: Make an appointment and bring your own temple clothes when attending the San Antonio temple.  It was quite the ordeal to get us in the 10:30am Wednesday session, but we made it and it was lovely!  Such a beautiful temple!  I love all the stained glass!

From there we headed to downtown San Antonio.  Our first stop was the Alamo of course.  Here is Deeds "remembering the Alamo".  It was way smaller than I ever imagined, but I love historical stuff like this!  So cool!

Next to the Alamo there is a theater where you can watch a 45min IMAX movie about the Alamo.  It was awesome!  I did a paper on the Alamo in college for a Spanish class, but I had totally forgotten that we got our butts kicked.  Really sad!  But good ol' Sam Houston came and conquered!  Here is Deeds hanging out with Davy Crocket.

After the Alamo, we walked around the Riverwalk.  We were a little early to get the real feel for the nightlife, but it was still beautiful!

I feel like we barely scratched the surface of what San Antonio has to offer.  Hopefully Deeds can explore more and find more awesome stuff to do for the next time I'm there.
We went out to dinner that night with my coworker, Larry Pruitt, and his wife.  It was great to see Larry and meet his wife.  We had a great time with them!  And they bought our dinner for us.  Such great people!

On Thursday, we met up with Deeds soon-to-be roommate and searched San Marcos, TX for a place for them to live.  We went to 3-4 different apartments and did that whole thing for several hours.  Barf!  I hate finding a place to live!  And coordinating that effort with a dude who we've never met and his mom was quite the adventure!  Here is the place they decided on...

The mom of Deeds' roommate was really nice, and she bought us lunch.  We were getting all sorts of meals paid for!  That afternoon, we headed up to Austin.  Our first stop was the Capitol building. 

We had to pay tribute to this legend.  God blessed Texas when this guy was in charge!  JK...I really have no idea, but I sure like him!

Always a fan of a good rotunda!!

After the Capitol, we walked around the University of Texas campus a little.  Hook 'em Horns!  Their football stadium is ginormous!!  I always think that LaVell Edwards Stadium is good size, but this stadium just makes good ol' LaVell look silly.  It would be blast to be there for a game!

Then we headed out to Hey Cupcake!  My friend, Heather, had been to this place last year and said we could not leave Austin without eating one of these cupcakes.  They are deeeeeeeelicious!

 

Then we went to this bridge where the largest colony of urban bats live.  At dusk, they fly out over Lady Bird Reservoir.  It is supposed to be quite the sight.  So we were waiting for that to go down, and it never did.  Come to find out (after calling the bat hotline, of course), the bats had flown south to Mexico for the winter.  Boring!  Hopefully Deeds will get go back and see them later in the year.  Here is me waiting for the bats and downtown Austin.

After the bat fail, we went to Driftwood, TX for some Texas BBQ.  The Salt Lick was a must on our Texas To Do list.  It sure did not disappoint.  Deeds said it was in the top 5 moments of his whole life.  This place is literally in the middle of nowhere, and it is huge.  People flock from all over to this restaurant.  Brisket....yummmm!  Pure BBQ bliss!

The sausage was just about the best thing I've ever tasted.  This is their smoker...what a beautiful sight!

Deeds' friend, Brad, and his wife were so nice to let us stay at their townhome that night.  We talked with them for a little while before heading to bed.  Stellar people!  I know my little Deedsy is in good hands with friends like that living close by in San Marcos!  The next morning, we ran a few errands and stopped by the NAVTEQ-San Antonio office on the way to the airport.  I like to check out our local offices whenever I'm in the neck of the woods.  Then I had to go catch my flight home.  Celebrating a great trip with my Lakers water that I got for Christmas!

It was a such a fun trip and so great to see where Deeds is going to be living for the next year and spend time with him before he sets up shop in Texas without me.  Boy, was I ready to get home though!  I was ready to get back into my routine.  Time to get back to the real world!