The Trip Back From Mexico

It's interesting I usually push for my international trips to be as long as possible in order to get the most juice out of the squeeze, but these short and sweet trips aren't bad either. It's sort of like eating the cherry and fudge off a sundae and throwing the rest away.

Houston airport has this really amazingly decorated Japanese restaurant that I am compelled to take pictures of each time I pass.

We stood at baggage claim back in Seattle for some time watching the dregs until they turned the conveyor belt off. I already knew what happened. There was a mint condition version of my suitcase remaining. Some knucklehead kid from a school group had clearly taken the wrong bag. This was especially funny because I've been using the same suitcase for like 15 years. I think Tom bought Angelica and I matching ones perhaps. It looks like total ass, all of the zipper handles are gone which I actually like because it makes it harder to open. So a person would have to be a special kind of stupid to confuse this never used thing for my green warhorse. We talked to the airline people and the police a bit. They returned it the next day but we were going to file a police report if they did not. That little puke better not mess with the half bottle of good tequila I have in there.

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.