The majority of our friends that spent Christmas with us joined us for a week long New Years hangout in San Antonio. This was another Escapees sponsored hangout hosted by our good friends, Rob and Laura. We reconnected with friends we had met in the past and made some new friends in the process. Escapees is all about community and the hangout program is one of the best ways to build your community on the road.
The first night was an overview of the week’s activities and an opportunity for initial introductions. We sat with two other couples, Joyce and Mark from Alabama and Brad and Carolyn from Minnesota. The first activity on day one was to be a scavenger hunt in and around the Alamo district and river walk of San Antonio. Teams needed to be formed for the activity, so we teamed up with our table mates to form what would be the winning team. This is our second hangout with a scavenger hunt and our second time winning the event. What made this one a bit more interesting is that it also happened to be the day of the Alamo Bowl featuring Oklahoma State and Oregon. Our hosts didn’t realize this at the time of scheduling the activities but it added some extra fun even if it did cause the River Walk to be even more crowded than usual.
Day two started with a visit to the Japanese Tea Gardens and lunch out. The gardens were small and we were definitely not in peak flower season but it was still a nice time out. That evening, we received a private after hours tour of the Alamo. This really turned into a history lesson as depicted by our tour guide. If you ever wonder what one does with a degree in history, one answer is to become a tour guide at the Alamo. Our guide did an excellent job and one tidbit that we found interesting is when the area belonged to Mexico, they had a lucrative offer for land in order to get the territory settled. The problem was more people from the United States signed up and Mexico found themselves in a situation with too many immigrants from the United States.
On New Years Eve, we started the day with a bike ride along the River Walk to tour four missions; Mission Concepcion, Mission San Jose, San Juan Capistrano Mission, and Mission Espada. The bike ride was a lot of fun and visiting the missions was educational. A large number of people at the hangout took part in the bike ride and all but 3 were using e-bikes of one form or another. We were about to complain that we had to pedal and power ourselves up the few hills that existed on the trail until we passed Bill walking his single speed vintage bike up one of the hills. We decided it wouldn’t look good if we complained after that. After the bike ride, we all met up at Kuntsler Brewery for lunch and some refreshing beverages. We were all there and enjoying each others company when Bill walked in and we all cheered his accomplishment.
We finished the day with a catered dinner and celebration in the event hall at the campground. We played trivia with each table being a team followed by music and dancing while we waited for the new year to arrive. We celebrated the ball dropping in Times Square and waited another hour for central time to reach midnight. As midnight approached, the neighborhood adjacent to the campground started shooting fireworks and put on quite a show for us as we all stood outside in the warm night and toasted the new year.
A late brunch and a short walk in a nearby park made for light activities on New Years Day. This was welcome by all who stayed up way past their normal bedtimes to ring in 2022. That evening, we gathered for general RV talk where we all gave pointers and discussed various things related to RVing. The only topic that was specifically off limits was “how do I get good internet service while on the road?”, a topic that can consume a lot of time and result in no good answers.
The weather changed on the 2nd and we all went from shorts and t-shirts to long pants and multiple layers. The day began with miniature golf at Cool Crest Miniature Golf, one of the oldest miniature golf courses in the country. After playing 18 holes of challenging and fun miniature golf with Brad and Carolyn as our playing partners, we all headed to Weathered Souls Brewing. We can thank our daughter, Kristina, for this second brewery visit of the week. For the second year in a row, Kristina gave us a gift certificate to a brewery local to our travels. Dan informed Rob (hangout host) that he needed to visit this brewery in order to spend his gift certificate. It’s surprisingly easy to convince Rob to add a brewery to the itinerary ;-). The brewery was vey happy to see the influx of 30+ thirsty customers and treated us all very well.
That evening we all went to the final night of Lightscape at the Botanical Gardens. The colder weather had us all bundled up with multiple layers but we all agreed that it made it feel much more like the holiday season. The lights were varied and made for a very enjoyable walk through the gardens in the cool evening air.
On our last full day of the hangout we visited Natural Bridge Caverns. The weather continued to be colder, with highs in the low 50’s so we dressed warmly. On the way to the caverns we discovered that, unlike other caves we’ve visited where the cave temperatures remain 55 degrees year round, this cave is 78 degrees and 99% humidity as it is a living cave with lots of moisture. The majority of us that were unaware of this fact found ourselves quite warm in the cave.
The final evening was a potluck dinner where we provided smoked mac and cheese, rapidly becoming our goto for such gatherings. After dinner we played some Jack Box games and had a fun time with everyone. The week had finally come to an end and Tuesday morning, the 4th of January, had us leaving our friends, both new and old, and heading back east to prepare for our big adventure of 2022. The trail is calling…
Rob…beer? Of course!
Sounds like another fantastic Kernoodle Hangout! Sorry we missed it but great ideas for when we visit San Antonio in a few months!