Bonus Texas Rodeo

So the whole reason we were playing around in San Antonio, Texas in the first place was that we were on our way down to Mexico to go to our friend Viry's brother's wedding. Our flight was supposed to be today but got canceled. This set off a bunch of frantic attempts to salvage traveling today because we were going to miss some fun stuff, such as going to a winery we were looking forward to. At one point we were even looking into taking a bus as Monterrey is not that far away. It would have probably been a horrible ride though so we just booked the same flight the next day and came up with some fun stuff to do on our bonus Texas day.

Gruene Hall in the town of Gruene, Texas, is the oldest of a string of Hill Country dance halls. It has been continuously operating since 1878.

The good book: "Selling out Gruene Hall, despite its small size, is a rite of passage for country musicians, following in the footsteps of George Strait and Merle Haggard."

Even more important than all the history blah blah about the hall is that it was featured in 1996' Michael starring John Travolta as the Archangel Michael.

Cantina del Rio called to me with this jalapeño margarita sign. Since discovering spicy margaritas in the San Antonio river walk I drink about seven a day. 

They quench the very thirst that they inspire. It's a very yin and yang situation.

We headed back to San Antonio's AT&T Center where the Spurs play to enjoy the majesty of the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo.

We started off strong with some entertaining sheep child abuse. Watching a kid getting thrown off an animal is just good clean family entertainment.

All of that bull riding had me hungry for some beef. In-N-Out Burger got it done.

I was drawn back to the magical Pearl District. This time we checked out the swanky Sternewirth, the hotel Emma's amazing bar.

There was a lot of brewery history on the walls. These defunct awesome breweries often remind me of Anheuser-Busch and how lucky St. Louis is that it has survived.

I found some money stapled to some bible crap. Poseidon works in mysterious ways.

San Antonio: Mission Impossible

San Antonio is home to the the largest Mexican market outside Mexico.

I threatened our friend Viry that I was going to wear this to her brother's Monterrey wedding.

Mi Tierra is still run by the same family that founded it in 1941.

They have pretty baller giant margaritas. I have good memories of coming here for margaritas on the 4th of July, 2014.

I ponied up for some mariachi accompaniment to our meal. Is there some sort of "treat your girl like a princess" award that I should be nominated for?

I like mole a lot so it featured prominently in my food choice today.

We remembered the Alamo and I said hello to Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.

The Alamo Cenotaph in front of the mission features the names and faces of the 150-plus heroes who died while enlarging America.

I think Zoe pooped out at this point but after seeing the Alamo for the second time, my curiosity was piqued by the signage I saw for the Missions Trail.

According to my favorite travelin' book, 1,000 Places to See in the US and Canada Before You Die, the "Alamo was on of the six area missions settled on or near the San Antonio River in the 1700s by the Franciscans to prevent the French in Louisiana from expanding into Spanish territory. The Alamo's four remaining sister missions lie south of downtown along the river, forming San Antonio Missions National Park.

We headed back to the River Walk area for dinner and drinks. This bad boy at Puro Boudro's is a prickly pear margarita, served with tequila, triple sec, and fresh lime juice frozen, layered with prickly pear cactus puree.

There were more mariachi bands patrolling for patrons.

I'm pretty proud of myself for deciding to check out Hot Joy just from the lobby window, but the place was magnificent. The Asian theme and Asian pop music blaring in the place were perfect. It approached theme park in its attention to detail.

The girls got a two person cocktail that our server lit on fire and then whipped cinnamon at which caused quite an amazingly awesome fire hazard. No one was harmed.

We asked the cinnamon pyromaniac which bar we should visit next, confessing we were from out of town. She was so nice that she wrote us out a whole list of ideas.

We chose Bar 1919 from our list. It was super fun and moody in a building's basement. It had an old timey speakeasy vibe with a crazy large selection of alcohol.

After a couple of normal drinks I was looking for something extra weird. I was proud of myself for ordering something so weird that it took them forever to find the bottle, and once they did it was unopened because no one is as cool as me. Sad.

Today I learned that Irish poteen is the moonshine of Ireland.

Rumble had fun lighting and was situated in what seemed to be a former car garage.

Slackers Bar was a fun video game joint. Why they even make bars that don't feature arcade games I do not know.

Lydia is freakishly good at arcade basketball machines.

I made her play so many rematches that my arms started to hurt.

Jandros Garden Patio

Lydia is nursing such an ice cream addiction that she made our Uber driver take us to a gas station to buy some. The place was so ghetto that they would only let her point at what ice cream she wanted through the glass.