December 2019 – San Antonio, Texas

January 21, 2020 (by Angela)

Jim and I left our lovely camp host campground in Vienna, IL on Thanksgiving Day. By December 2nd, we’d arrived into the campground in which we’d spend the month of December. What a wonderful change in weather! Temperatures mostly ran in the upper 60s to upper 70s, and usually the humidity was very low. Still, nights got cool, so we had to run our heat, but when night-time lows would have been the highs in places we had just left or passed through, it was good for us!

Jim was busy with both make-a-living work and school work (he’s working on his Master’s in history for fun) during our first two weeks in the San Antonio area, so we didn’t get to go and do very much for fun – though I would argue the better weather, even if doing the normal mundane things of living, was quite fun. We did slip away one day for a long lunch and visited the San Antonio Riverwalk where we finally took the boat cruise and then had a bite to eat. It was a nice outing.

The weekend after Jim had completed his school term, we had two wonderful outings with Leroy. The weather was almost perfect, too. On Saturday, we drove to the Gulf of Mexico and visited Corpus Christi. We’d hoped to connect for lunch with a friend who lives in the area, but she was under the weather. We visited a Farmers’ Market, and then we took Leroy on his first walk on the beach. It was so much fun to see him playing in the water! Lunch was outside at one of the beach-side restaurants. The final fun for the day was a visit to Padre Island National Seashore where dogs are welcome to explore with us while on leash.

The next day, we headed to the northeast side of San Antonio where Jim had found us a good hike to enjoy. It was the Dry Comal Trail near New Braunfels, Texas. All three of us needed the exercise. One bonus of this hike was that we found some live oak trees with Spanish moss in them. We love live oak trees with Spanish moss.

The following weekend was the one before Christmas. The three of us a made a fast-paced trip back to northern Alabama and southern Tennessee to see my side of the family for Christmas. We’d had an early Thanksgiving/Christmas family gathering in Illinois with Jim’s side before our trek to warmer climates. Though fast, it was a great trip. We didn’t get to see everyone, but we got to see as many as we could. One of our kids and his family had both sickness and work conflicts, unfortunately. Another of our families is spending three more years in Japan, so our hope of them being with us this year didn’t happen.

The weekend after Christmas, Jim and I took advantage of some Groupon deals to have a bit of adventure. First, we tried our hand at throwing axes. If you need an axe thrower, get Jim, not me. It was a ton of fun. The next day, we attended a live theatre production of Scrooge. Both of us enjoyed it very much. Don’t think Scrooged; it was very close to Dickens’ original A Christmas Carol.

Jim and I had been planning for months to go to downtown San Antonio for New Year’s Eve to watch the Tower of the Americas elevator rise and the fireworks at midnight. We’d been there once before – when Jim proposed to me on New Year’s Even on the Riverwalk – but the fog kept us from seeing all of the things we’d hope to see that time. It was not to be. Our new fur baby is terribly afraid of loud noises. While yet early and only a few fireworks had been heard near our campground, it became apparent there was no way we could leave him there or take him with us. He needed to feel as safe as possible; he needed his people with him and the minimum amount of fireworks. That is how we came to welcome in 2020 in our RV rather than with revelers in San Antonio.

Frightened fur baby in thunder vest lying in between us

I think Jim, Leroy, and I did a very good job of cramming a lot of fun into half a month. We certainly enjoyed staying warm in Texas.

New Year’s Day brought our next adventure as we were on the move again – this time a bit to the west side of San Antonio. That will be a part of our January update, so stay tuned!