In case you missed my last entry (shame on you), for the past eight days, I’ve been on family vacation to Corpus Christi and San Antonio. It was pretty fun, but not quite as fun as our usual family vacations. Also, I saw a lot of stuff I thought I need to share, so later, this entry could get pretty random. Just a warning to the faint of heart or whatever.
So, last Tuesday, June 13, we packed everything up and left about four in the afternoon. We drove forever and ate supper right before we got to Tehas. Finally, at about eleven o’clock at night, we stopped in Nacogdoches, Texas, where we got a hotel.
The next day, we drove even friggin’ more! We continued to drive until we finally got to Corpus, where we checked into the hotel and drove around some to see all the neat stuff to see in Corpus (and just to let you know, besides the beach, the USS Lexington [more on that later], the Texas State Aquarium, and the Convention Center, there’s really not much interesting there [at least in my opinion]). We ate supper at the Olive Garden (which is always good, no matter where you are 
)Then we went to this random beach and enjoyed the ocean breeze for a little while.
The next day, we had to get up early, cause my dad had to bowl in the USBC Open Nationals. This is the yearly tournament for male bowlers who have paid their sanction fees for USBC. All people are invited to bowl in this tournament, and there are all kinds of prizes and all that good stuff. Though the conditions are always really tough, and this year was no different. However, one of my dad’s team mates rolled a 299 game (in case you don’t know a perfect game is 300)…it was really nice. My dad bought himself a new bowling ball, and my mom bought a ball and some bowling shoes.
Afterwards, we went to the USS Lexington. “The Lex’ is a de-commissioned United States Essex-Class Carrier that has been converted into a floating museum. It was really cool (of course, I like military-technology stuff). There were all kinds of displays of guns, helicopters, airplanes, and all kinds of other
military stuff. There was also an IMAXmovie theater, which showed a movie about Fighter Pilots. It really enjoyed going to “The Lex.” We ate a Whataburger, which is really good.
The next day, we went to the beach, which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but I still really didn’t have all that much fun. After that, we went and drove “The Loop,†which is this highway loop that goes around Corpus
Christi, through Aransas (stupid Texans, can’t even spell “Arkansas” right 
) Pass and Port Aransas, over Mustang Island, and then
back to Corpus Christi. During this excursion, we got to ride on a ferry, which was kind of cool. After we got back to the hotel room, my parents did the laundry, so my brother and I sat in the hotel room. I had my good friend, Internet, to keep me company, so I wasn’t too depressed about it. This was our last day in Corpus, which I was happy about. Corpus was not all that fun for me.
So, when we woke up the next day, we left for San Antonio (yes, more driving). And after you get out of Corpus, heading towards San Antonio, the land is flat…for as long as the eye can see. Not the kind of landscape you want to look at for many hours. Also, it
is prime growing season, yet none of the fields we passed on the way to SA were being used to grow crops…kind of weird.When we got there, we stayed in the Hotel for a little bit, and about supper time, we went to the River Market/Alamo/River Walk area. Before I go into what we did there, I wish to pose a question. Why is it that to get from the area where most of the hotels in a given city are to the “Touristy†(and yes, according to Microsoft Word’s Spell-Check, “Touristy” is, in fact, a real word) area, you are required most of the time to go through the slum part of town? It seems inevitable that wherever you are, this is the case. (Yes, this was the case in San Antonio.) So, in the Downtown San Antonio area, we ate at this awesome Mexican Restaurant called Mi Tierra. It has to be the best Mexican food I have ever had. But if you go there, be prepared to wait a while to eat… You have to get a number (like in government offices where you pull the little slip from the machine, and they call your number to be served) at the podium, and then you watch these LED displays for your number to get a table. So you have to wait to be waited on. We got lucky, and had our number called soon after we got our ticket (they randomly choose the numbers), so that was cool. If you do go there, I recommend the “Super Mexican Dinner†or something like that. It was really good. After that, we went and saw the Alamo. It seems smaller than I imagined it to be (and less orange than it looks in the pictures). We then walked the Paseo de Rio (the River Walk, for those of you not versed in your Spanish). It was really cool. The flora was really pretty. I so wish I had a digital camera so I could have taken a million pictures there. There were also a ton of people there. It was definitely cool.
The next day, we went to SeaWorld. The shows were awesome. The rides, not so much. Now don’t get me wrong, they were still fun…it’s just that I thought that the shows were so much more interesting. We came back on the day after that, so we
had two straight days of SeaWorld. Now, some of the randomness starts to surface…
- “La Grange†is best left to ZZ Top.
- “I Like to Move It, Move It†= Crazy Little Kid (and Mrs. Smith)
- The “Carwash†Song = Craziness (andNikki Greene)
And that brings us to today (technically yesterday, now)…we drove ALL FRIGGIN’ DAY! I’m so glad to be home, though. Today I heard a The Fray song on the radio. It’s kind of cool to already know a song before it’s played on the radio.
Also, we took my car on the trip, and the transmission started to leak. However, we think it’s just that the seals dried out, allowing the transmission fluid to leak, because once it cooled down, and we got back to the more humid climes of Arkansas, it quit. So, that’s good. But I still think we’re going to get the
seals replaced, just in case.
And don’t think that just because I’m
back at home means that there’s no more stuff to write about…now comes the part of this post where more randomness surfaces and I make some other comments. So, here we go:
- Pastels are definitely not good colors for beach houses (and probably any house, for that matter).
- There were bathyscaphes for sale in Corpus.
- The next version of Microsoft Office is a huge improvement over the current one…but it takes some getting used to the new User Interface.
- Saw a Delivery Truck from Keebler’s that said “A little Elfin Magic goes a long way.” and I thought it said “A little ‘Effin magic goes a long way” :)
- I saw a real-life Shriner’s temple.
- Symbolics.com was the first ever domain name to be registered.
- In San Antonio, I saw a pregnancy clinic next to a Little Ceasar’s Pizza… so I guess if you’re hungry after banging your girlfriend, you can grab some pizza while she’s checking to see if you got her pregnant.
- My mom says she saw a transvestite gas station attendant.
Now…while I was on vacation, due to the large amount of car-riding, I was able to catch up on my music-listening, and here are the results:
- Nada Surf changed a lot between their first and second albums. Both are good, but the style definitely changed a whole lot between the two.
- Brand New are pretty good. I really like the song “Sic Gloria Transit &
Glory Fades.” - Motion City Soundtrack also changed a lot between their albums. I like their new album much better, but again, they’re both still good.
- I really like Plain White T’s.
- Circa Survive is also really good, and the singer has a really unique voice.
- I heard the actual recording of “Daddy’s Hands” on the radio. It brought back bad memories. I instantly turned up my iPod to cover it up. The “Star Wars Main Theme†was much more enjoyable.
- They played “Move Along” by the All-American Rejects in Corpus Christi like once every two hours. Now, I’ll admit, I think it’s a good song, even an excellent one, but one kind of gets tired of hearing a song every time you get in the car! Literally. I heard it every time we were in the car in Corpus.
So, that’s enough randomness and updating and music stuff to keep one occupied for quite some time…so I’m signing off for now. (8,191 characters, suckas!)