San Antonio Trip Day 1

April 8, 2022

We were supposed to go to Washington DC for our granddaughter’s baptism but she came down with Covid so our trip was postponed until June. Since we had all taken some time off we decided that a short RV trip would be in order. We had been wanting to see how the cats would do in the RV so we packed them up and headed off for a long weekend.

Our cats are named Bear and Bunny. Bear is smooth haired and Bunny is the fluffy one. Bear had no problem with our traveling. He laid down on his pillow under the table and relaxed. Bunny was a different story, she was not happy to be traveling and she loudly let us know. Hana found the only way to get her to calm down and be quiet was to hold her wrapped up in a blanket and talk or sing to her.

As always we plan to leave early and always find ourselves leaving at least an hour later than planned. Not only was this our first camping trip with our cats it was also our first time we would tow our car behind the RV. Hook up took a bit but we finally left around 10 am.

We had decided to stop in Seguin for lunch. We had heard about the Seguin Power Plant but seeing and eating was beyond what we had expected. The Power plant was built in the late 1890’s and later hydroelectric generators were installed to power the town. It was decommissioned in the 1990’s and later put up for sale. Much of the original machinery is still visible inside and interesting to view.

The Power Plant was purchased in 2013 and turned into a bar and grill The view of the Guadalupe River from the back patio was outstanding. We spent about an hour exploring before getting ready to head down the road to San Antonio.

To add to the whole experience the food was wonderful. I had Shrimp Nachos, while Hana enjoyed a BLT and Frank a burger. I would recommend trying them out if you are in that part of the country.

While we were eating lunch we had left the cats in the RV with the windows open a bit and a fan running. When we got back in the RV we immediately spotted Bear but we could not find Bunny. We started up the RV thinking she would immediately start meowing once we started moving. We drove up the driveway of the restaurant 30 feet and no noise. So then we started to worry that somehow she had managed to push her way out of a window. So it was back to the parking lot to walk around and call her name. After 10 minutes we decided she had to be hiding somewhere in the motor home so we hoped for the best and hit the road. I know she was chipped with our address if she had gotten out. We drove another 20 or 30 minutes before she appeared from a hiding place dusty and meowing. We were so relived she was not lost we didn’t mind all the noise she was making.

Towing the car with the RV

The campground we had booked was San Antonio/Alamo KOA and only 10 minutes from the Riverwalk and Downtown San Antonio. It had 40 acres of treed camping spaces plus a Greenway that ran beside it. Two men had built the KOA over 50 years ago and it has been in the family ever since. The son of one of the men runs it today.  It was a great place to camp and the people there were very friendly and helpful. We found out how helpful when we went to disconnect our car and discovered the battery had gone dead on our trip down. Some of the workers brought their personal vehicle over with jumper cables and got our car going.

Great Campground!

Once we got settled in and set up we decided to head in to the Tower of America in San Antonio to watch the sunset. The Tower of America is 750 feet tall. We enjoyed the scenery from the observation deck. We tried to book a table at the revolving restaurant but all the tables were full for the night. So we decided to hike about a half a mile over to a German restaurant we had read about. We didn’t realize that this weekend was San Antonio’s festival of flowers and so many streets were blocked off and you had to have tickets to the festival to get through them. After we had wander for about a mile trying to get to the restaurant we gave up and decided to head back to our car and try and drive somewhere to find dinner.

When we got back in our car and started to pull out of the parking space suddenly we found out our car wasn’t going anywhere. We weren’t sure what was wrong. I was worried it was the drive train and maybe something had gone when we were towing. We called for a tow truck and were told it wouldn’t be there for over an hour. We were starving and it was 8 pm so we ran back to Tour of America to see if they had anything to eat. There little café was sold out of most items but I was able to get Frank a turkey sandwich and Hana and I got chips.

We decided that instead of all of us waiting with the car we would call an Uber to drive Hana and I back to the RV while Frank waited for the tow truck. We had the best Uber driver. Luis was from Honduras and had lived in Houston before moving to San Antonio. He not only drove us back to the campground but all the way to the door of our RV. We were so grateful to be back and the RV and able to make something to eat.

Back at the Tower of America parking lot Frank waited over an hour for the tow truck to arrive. The parking lot locked down at just a few minutes after the tow truck picked up our car. Frank caught an Uber with another driver and we were all safely back in the RV for the night but with no car. The tow truck drive dropped it off at the Honda dealership in San Antonio and we would have to wait for the morning to find out what was wrong with it and see how soon it could be repaired. It seemed our trip was going to be spent just sitting around the campground until we talked to our son in Austin and he volunteered to come down and spend the next day driving us around to see the sights.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *