The Texas Trip - part 3

Day 3

Day three was supposed to be a lazy day driving to San Antonio and then heading to Helotes to see the Mavericks at the John T. Floores Country Store. The drive to S.A. definitely reminded one that the oil/gas boom is in high gear with the fracking of the Eagle Ford Shale. I lost count of all the trucks that we saw.

We stopped for lunch in La Vernia, TX at the Blue Bird Café. It appears that it had only been open a short while, probably to cater to the oil field workers. As this was Sunday, however, most of their clientele was the after church crowd. It had a diner theme and of course I got the chicken fried steak.

After arriving in S.A., we headed to the hotel to rest until the evening concert. We got out to Helotes around 6:30 to go in when doors opened at 7. Because there was limited seating, we had hoped to be early enough to grab a picnic table. Much to my surprise, there must have been 300 - 400 people already in line. There was no way we would get a table.

We decided to go get something to eat and then we would go back for the Mavericks and stay for as long as we wanted. We headed back into S.A. to go to the Alamo Café. It's a Tex-Mex joint with fantastic flour tortillas. After dinner and the margaritas, we decided not to go back to Helotes, but to go to the hotel and call it a night. It's hell getting old.

Day 3 - 157 miles

Day 4

Day four was another day of not getting everything we wanted. On the drive to South Padre Island, we stopped in Alice for lunch at the Dairy Burger. This place had been suggested by a friend of mine who was from there and currently lives in Minneapolis. The steak strip basket was delicious, especially the spicy tomato puree to add to the cream gravy for dipping.

Heading in and out of Raymondville, we encountered a horrible dust storm. We had to slow to a crawl. We stopped in Raymondville and it was 87 degrees. Within five miles of leaving, the temp had dropped to 77 degrees as a cold front moved through. We endured high winds and driving rain into Port Isabelle. This greatly reduced our bird watching that we had planned to do. We went over the causeway onto South Padre Island.

We went to the SPI Birding Center, but the high winds (21 sustained, gusts to 41 mph)made it unbearable to walk out over the marshland at the center.

We stopped at the La Quinta and at least got a room with a view.

As you can see there is plenty of chop.

After dinner at Cap'n Ron's, we decided to catch a movie and saw Draft Day with Kevin Costner. I'll give it 3.5 (of 5) stars.

Hopefully tomorrow will be less windy and will allow for some bird watching as we head down to Brownsville and start our trek up the border.

We'll also go to the Sea Turtle Rescue center before we leave SPI.

Day 4 - 324 miles.