Narwhal Free Weekend, Part 2

If you're like me and did not know that Narwhal were real, there you go. They are. (real, that is). But again, not at Sea World. 

We knew that after seven fun-filled hours at Sea World, we weren't particularly going to be feeling like driving back to Austin, so we booked a couple of rooms at The Menger Hotel in downtown San Antonio, literally across the street from the Alamo. It's a pretty, historical place (apparently there was a thing with Teddy Roosevelt, riding his horse into the lobby?). It is also supposed to be haunted. Whatever. Like I could ever hear a ghost over the sounds of my monkey children, who by the way, broke a doorstop, removed some molding and dismantled the mini-bar all within the first fifteen minutes of our arrival.  I'm sorry I don't have any photos of the hotel, I was trying to minimize the damage.  I also don't have hardly any photos of our dinner out that night or the "Adults Only" portion of the evening which involved copious drinks at the Ocho Lounge at Hotel Havana, a darling little place that serves wicked Hemingway Cocktails. Not that I had any of those. I do have this shot of Me and Sam at the Alamo.

I didn't have any Hemingway Cocktails, instead I stuck with just beer... and tequila, to which my stomach responded, "ooh ho ho, you obviously think you can still drink tequila and beer. hahahahahahahah. That's cute.." Oh. My.   a bit of a rough start to the morning. BUT, we rallied and headed off to the San Antonio Zoo.

Another Gorgeous Day. Seriously, if you're going to do things outside in San Antonio, don't wait for the summer.  The weather was absolutely perfect at about 75 degrees. Any hotter and I would have probably been so irritated I would have tackled the kid who thrust this fake lizard in my kids' faces. Seriously. Not a zoo worker. Just some other kid with a fake lizard. Scared the crap outta me. But, no harm, no foul.

And now we enter the Hippopotamus Portion of our excursion. Yes, I know, I should probably get some color on the legs before I blind people. 

Here is a hippo giving me the stink-eye. 

And then showing me his butt. Thanks for that. 

Aside from all the hippo ass, we really did see some cool animals, like this here warthog. They're really kind of impressive. 

And this porcupine who was really this close to me. Seriously he was not afraid at all and kept coming up to say hi. The quills, though, they do not look comfortable. 

But honestly, the boys were a little worn out from all the SeaWorlding and the Riverwalking and the Hotel Destroying. They climbed into the rented stroller at the entrance of the zoo and pretty much stayed there the whole time, refusing to get out to go look at any animals. Hopper just kept asking when we were going to return to "The Land of Food" by which, I assume, he means the concession area? I don't know. He just wanted popcorn. 

I did manage to cajole him into climbing on this elephant statue, but he's doing it reluctantly and only because I told him the Land of Food was right around the corner. 

And here they are with their oversized portions of ice cream. I will say something for the San Antonio Zoo concessions: expensive, yes, but they think nothing of piling half a gallon of ice cream onto a tiny cone. And yes, they were pretty much wearing vanilla ice cream the rest of the day. 

But aside from all the popcorn and ice cream, we did get in some baby goat time. Not seen: Rowan yelling and waving HI BABY GOAT at this one about fifty times. 

The goat is just trying to figure out whether he can headbutt him and get away with it. 

And thus ends our two-day family excursion to San Antonio. Verdict: absolutely fantastic time of the year to go. Maybe less zoo-ing, more sleeping in, but all in all, a success, I'd say.