How I Spent My Birthday Vacation

As I write this, I am sitting on an airplane bound for Pittsburgh - an airplane equipped with Wi-Fi.  To quote Wil Wheaton, "I love living in the future."

Leaving behind Scot and the kids, I spent the weekend in San Antonio, TX with my best friend from high school, Trista, and her husband, Dan.  These are two of the coolest, most awesome people I know and I haven't seen them in 2 years.  To say I was looking forward to seeing them is something of a massive understatement.

It would also be a massive understatement to say "Gee, that trip was fun."  It was more than fun.  It was exactly what I needed and the perfect balance of sitting around shooting the shit and going out and doing things.  I ate way too much but I don't give a damn because it was all so tasty.  I could wax rhapsodic for an entire post about the food alone.  I'll spare you that, though.

I left my house early Friday morning and headed to the airport.  The drive was perfect - not a ton of traffic, got there in plenty of time, and found a place to stash the car.  I got through security with plenty of time to spare (and got the full-on TSA grope) and boarded my flight to Dallas on time.

Pittsburgh from the plane window during take off.

The flight to Dallas arrived early of all things, I got to my next gate for my next flight, THAT one went off on time and it arrived early, too!  Who knew that the words "airline schedule" weren't an oxymoron?!

Dan picked me up at the airport and whisked me off to the taqueria for lunch.  I promised not to wax rhapsodic about the food on this trip so I'll just say YUM.  Then, we spent a couple of hours back at their house chatting about books and making fun of Twilight while we waited for Trista to be done at work.  Once she was, we went and picked her up - oh frabjous day!

Trista then treated us to a roast duck dinner.  Again with the YUM.  Since I was just dying to stay up way past my bedtime, we decided to head out to see a movie and settled on seeing Thor at The Alamo Drafthouse.  This theatre was really cool - each row has a long table in front of it and they have a menu of foods you can order from throughout the movie.  Dinner and a movie all in one place.  Since we'd already eaten we chose to indulge in dessert: Guinness milkshakes.  I don't know who decided that ice cream and beer thrown in a blender and topped with whipped cream was a good idea but that person deserves large amounts of cash and the swimsuit model of their choice.  The movie was decent, too.

We got home ridiculously late (for me) and I fell into bed and slept like the dead, not waking until 8 am (which was 9 am according to my body).  Bliss!

After breakfast (which, again, nothing but YUM), we decided to get out of the house for a bit.  After we managed to clean ourselves up, we headed over to Trista's work because she had a to do a quick check on some of her lab work.

Amusing sign in Trista's lab

SCIENCE!

After she was done, we went to the local library which was having a book sale.  While I didn't score anything for myself, I did find some paperbacks for my Dad.  Trista struck out but Dan left with an entire stack.

By this time it was time for lunch.  We decided on Thai.  Oh green curry, how I love you.

We spent the afternoon in downtown San Antonio.  We weren't looking to do anything specific so we basically wandered about.  I discovered that San Antonio is a very walkable city.  Trista and Dan, having just been there again recently, were not interested in The Alamo so we had planned to skip it.  As it turned out, we stopped there anyway just to avail ourselves of their restrooms.  Remember (to pee at) The Alamo!  But, since we were there, we took a quick stroll through the gardens and took a gander at the front of the place.

Trista and Dan

Trista and me

The Alamo (see, I didn't forget it)

After doing a strafing run on The Alamo we headed down to the Riverwalk.  We didn't do anything except wander the path along the river, take pictures, and just generally enjoy a really gorgeous day.  After a while we got tired of walking and had seen most of what we cared to gawk at so we hiked back to the car (detouring once again through the gardens at The Alamo) and headed home for a couple of hours and some foot rest before going to dinner.  We sat around talking and in the process I managed to get enough recommendations for books to fill up my Amazon wish list.  Woot!

The cuisine choice for dinner was Mediterranean.  Not to beat a dead horse here, but YUM.  The meal was very tasty and beyond that full of good conversation and friendship.  All was right with my world.

After dinner we went home, made sinful peanut butter blondies, popped open some of Trista and Dan's homemade wine (they make a mean Malbec!), and I got introduced to Castle and Chuck.  Of course I've heard of these shows but never gotten around to watching them.  Nathan Fillion's character on Castle is the unholy melding of Captain Mal Reynolds and Captain Hammer.  In a word, awesome.  Chuck was fun and full of giggles.  I think if I watch more, I will become seriously addicted to it.

We stayed up late talking and drinking wine and lounging around without a care in the world.  It was precisely what I needed.  Then we fell into bed for some much needed rest.

My flight home wasn't leaving until mid-afternoon so we got to be lazy and slow moving this morning.  We drank coffee and chatted.  We ate breakfast and chatted.  We sat around on our asses and chatted.  And then it was time for me to pack up my stuff and get ready to leave.  They dropped me at the airport and we said goodbye.  I miss them already.

So, now it's back to my regular life.  The boys had a weekend with Dad and I'm sure Scot is ready for me to be back at the helm when it comes to steering the family ship.  Having had a chance to rest and recharge, I'm ready to get back to it, too.  This little mini-vacation was an incredible treat for me and I'm so very glad I got to do it.  I have to give a special thanks to my parents for gifting me with this and to my husband and in-laws for working out logistics to make it happen.  My family loves me and I love them right back.