LETS GET READY TO RODEO, SAN ANTONIO!

Today we went out around San Antonio with Eric's cousin and his girlfriend, Jordan and Victoria. They took us to downtown to see some sights, and a cattle-drive parade, that began a week of barbeque competitions and a rodeo.

Cattle-drive.

As we were walking toward the parade route we passed the Alamo. Pretty impressive, and even more impressive that after the battle it became the center point of an entire downtown of a city.

so many cowboys and ranchers.

The cattle drive and parade was like nothing I had ever seen before. There was so much Texan pride, and cowboy showmanship. The first bit of the parade was a handful of cowboys on horseback leading a pack of about 50 longhorns through downtown as the traditional start to the rodeo. After that it was a standard town parade, but with that Texan twist that gave it an entirely different cultural feel. The standard youth groups from churches, and dance classes, and high school bands were replaced with horseback riding schools, boys making lassos, Apache tribal dances, and mariachi high school clubs.

God Bless Texas.

If there was one place on this trip where I had felt as if I was in an entirely different country and culture, it was Texas, without a doubt. I wish my part of the country had as unique of a culture, and were as proud of that unique culture as Texas is.

And God bless that country to our north too.

We took a tour of the riverwalk afterward. The riverwalk is a section of downtown that has a canal running through it with shops and restaurants along it. If you have ever been to the canal in Providence, Rhode Island, its like that, but it actually has things around it. It gave a great feel to the city and made it very friendly for pedestrians to walk around downtown, something that the Providence version fails at.

Riverwalk.

Tex-Ven-nice.

We had lunch at Rudy's Barbeque, a gas station-restaurant north of San Antonio. They had a sign out front that said that they were the worst BBQ in Texas, and the second I got inside, I knew they were lying.

Awful BBQ.

Not.

The place smelled amazing, and the food was delicious and cheap. Best barbeque any of us ever had. The table got ribs, chop, brisket, turkey, creamed corn, beer, potato salad, beans, peach cobbler, and basically a full loaf of white bread to wash it down with. Regina was almost in tears it tasted so good.

"I'm so full, but it's so good I cant stop!"

Best meal yet.

Then we took a siesta until about 7, when we went out to an icehouse called The Friendly Spot for drinks and tex-mex. An icehouse is an amazing creation that the southwest has come up with. Its a bar, but the only thing inside is the actual bar (hence ice-house), all the seating is outside. So its basically a really chill party in someone's back yard, except theres a bar and live music as well. If it wasn't so damn cold in the northeast they would be such a big hit. We spent a few hours there drinking dressed (lime and salted bottleneck) beers, eating amazing quesadillas and tacos, and watching the Spurrs game on a big projector.... in 60 degree weather.... on January 29th. That's all I have to say about that.

There was also this guy, hauling a tree he chopped down in the back of his F-650.

Tomorrow we are off to New Orleans, where we are staying at the Queen and Crescent in the French Quarter. We plan to eat and drink our way through the neighborhood. There will be lots of pictures. We wanted to thank Jordan and Victoria for being lovely hosts to us and bringing us to delicious places to eat during our stay in Texas.