Yeee-Haa, Texas Part One - Houston & San Antonio

Texas is a big place. As we visited four cities throughout the state, we decided to split this post into two otherwise it will be ridiculously long. First up, Houston!

Houston
Houston is generally a working city, and our previous experience with working cities (see Calgary and Pittsburgh) implies a short stay, hence we spent only one night in Houston.  Turns out that was a very good decision, because there really isn't much to do or eat at all. Houston's biggest draw card is the Houston Space Center, but being almost 40 km's out of the city, we couldn't justify the cost for something we were really that interested in (and we saw everything space related in the Smithsonian in Washington).

Our Air bnb place was right near Minute Maid stadium which was pretty cool.

Downtown Houston.

This was main street Houston. While it looked nice, it lacked any substance. Most places closed by 6-7pm, hence we struggled to find somewhere to eat!

Our Air bnb hosts cute cat Radio, he was super fun and cheeky.

A terribly blurry shot of our room in the loft apartment.

The outside of the apartment in Houston.

And that was Houston. Luckily we had entertaining hosts and their cat, otherwise we would have been a little bit bored. But then again, we spent less than 24 hours in Houston so it wasn't such a big deal.

San Antonio

Funnily enough when planning this monumental trip, our initial route was to go from Houston to Dallas, then onward, entirely skipping San Antonio and Austin. But, thanks to my Dad introducing me to The Alamo when I was young, I decided we should pop past San Antonio just to check that out. And damn was that a good call. San Antonio is like the little gem of Texas. Not internationally known, which is criminal, but then again, that's not such a bad thing, we can keep San Antonio our little secret.

Due to lack of finding a good Air bnb place in San Antonio, we had to treat ourselves to a hotel (what a shame) which weren't complaining about. Above is a shot of our ridiculously huge room though the photo doesn't do it justice (there was also a kitchen to the right and a TV behind).

Our hotel backed onto the River Walk which is a small river that runs through downtown. You can walk right along the river right to all the restaurants and shops which we loved as it was a much more pleasant walk than going through the streets.

A view of part of the riverwalk.

Of course we managed to find a Mall to shop in. Also the boat you see is a water taxi but we were to tight to take it.... $15 each per person.... no way!

Restaurants along the river.

One of our cute squirrel friends.

Lucky for us we got to spend Thanksgiving in San Antonio. Now with not much open and no where else to go we headed to the Mall. We couldn't find turkey so we thought a huge bucket of Lousiana fried chicken (a close descendant of the turkey, with an American  or fried take on it) was close enough.
The before shot of our "thanksgiving lunch"

This was taken after we demolished our bucket of dirty chicken. Yes its disgusting and we looked like complete pigs but I promise you we cleaned it up and walked off the food a thousand times over.
We felt very very dirty after eating this meal.

A trip to San Antonio wouldn't be complete without visiting The Alamo, the sole purpose of our visit..
This photo above is taken of a model of the battle that took place at The Alamo. The time and detail put into this was incredible.

The layout of the Alamo.

Some of Davy Crocketts guns. Look how long they are!

This was a very important relic, but we cant remember why it was so important. 

The barracks inside the walls of the Alamo. 

One of the oldest trees in San Antonio next to the well, it just looked cool. 

That same tree from above. 

The Alamo.

Red, white & blue decorated Christmas tree.

A really cool hotel right next to The Alamo.

Monument outside The Alamo.

The entrance to our hotel. 

So the day after thanksgiving is known nationally as Black Friday. Sounds pretty grim, but its actually quite the opposite. Its just a day of immense shopping deals. Funnily enough though it actually starts on Thursday, Thanksgiving. So we decided to jump on a bus for half and hour and go shopping at one of the largest shopping districts we'd ever seen. Our first stop on our shopping crusade was Best Buy, pretty much a JB HiFi. We got to Best Buy at 5:30pm and the store was due to open at 6pm. Despite this, the line was at least 300+ people long, and weaved around corners and bends, with sales associates handing out brochures and tickets for major items, it was mental.

The line out side of Best Buy started at the door on the left, then snaked down past the DSW door then back to the road in the middle of the screen. It then went down to the right all the way down the road. 

This was our view of Best Buy from our spot in line.

After Best Buy we decided to head over to Target that opened its doors at 8pm. So we got to Target at 6:30pm, way too early, but we were still one of probably around 200 people there. The people at the front of the line were sitting in their camping chairs with blankets indicating that that had been there so a long time.  

Just another section of the beautiful River Walk. 

On the night of Black Friday there was a Christmas parade down the river. People had lined up to secure their spot at around 2pm despite the parade not starting until after 7pm. But you could understand why, San Antonio had their annual Christmas-light-switching-on ceremony to kick off the parade, so once all the lights were on it was pretty spectacular.

A section of the River next to the Mall were the floats paraded down the river. Needless to say there was way too many people. 

The Alamo lit up at night. 

One of the many Christmas trees lit up with the Texan Flag colours. 

One of the many boats that paraded down the river. 

Turns out there are a few Pizza companies in the local area that try and push their business upon hotel guests. 

More of the River Walk, with the many restaurants along it. 

Despite this restaurant having a pretty good menu we pretty much only ate here because Lauren missed Charlie (her mum & dads dog) and thought of him wanting a burger. We actually ate here twice, once for dinner and then breakfast on our last morning in San Antonio which you see below. It was pretty delicious.... and cheap aswell.

This was my breakfast burrito, who needs an English Breakfast?

So that was San Antonio (and Houston), one of the nicest places we have been on the trip. I could imagine it would be a perfect week vacation destination. But after San Antonio, we craved some good Texan BBQ, and boy did we find it in Austin. Those photo's will be up in the next couple of days. But, a word of warning, make sure you eat before reading the next post, otherwise you'll find yourself suddenly in the supermarket with ribs in one hand and all kinds of delicious pork. Just saying, I warned you.

So until then, hope everyone's well and we will speak to you soon.
Kristian & Lauren.