Day 4 – Cabela’s & Inner Space Caverns

Thursday was our last day in San Antonio. As much fun as I was having I missed Mario terribly and couldn’t wait to get home and see him.

We got up, got ready, and packed up all our stuff. While we waited for everyone else, Mary, the kids and I went to Walmart to get a few things for the road. We got packages of ham for Alaethia (one of the only things she wanted to eat during the trip), fruit, milk and drinks.

We had breakfast at Denny’s (yum) with Jose, Elda, their kids and Jorge. Tommy, Yadira and their kids arrived later since they were going their own way.

Our first stop was Cabela’s after breakfast, which is this huge sporting goods store in Buda, TX. All the men in our family love some type of hunting so they all loved this place. It was really amazing, actually. It had huge dioramas of stuffed animals in their natural habitats such as the mountains or Africa. It was really cool. My boys were throwing fits while I was taking photos and looking around because they were desperate to get to the shooting range upstairs. So after I’d taken at least 50 pictures of all the animals we went up there. And then they were upset because they couldn’t shoot the targets correctly. After they’d played there for a while they took pictures and then we went to the aquarium. It was a nice aquarium; lots of bass fish and a funny one called a Black Crappie LOL. I became 5 years old when I saw that one and laughed along with the kids.

We hit the road again and stopped for gas. While we were there we asked for directions to the Inner Space Cavern. Nobody knew the way except that it was in Georgetown. We followed Jose and Elda through Austin and then Round Rock and then got to Georgetown. The kids were antsy and hungry (mine were throwing spectacular fits not wanting to leave the gift shop—which is quite rude of the people to put it right at the entrance!)

We went back to Round Rock to have lunch a T.G.I.Fridays. What a shame that we didn’t have a truck or money…Ikea was right in from of Fridays!

I ate the usual plate I’d get when we actually had a Fridays in the Valley, the Sizzling Chicken and Shrimp, or something like that. It was so good.

We went back to the Cavern and waited for the tour to start. They told us no food or drinks were allowed but they were crazy if they thought Alaethia would stay quiet the whole tour without a sippy of milk. It’s not like we were going to graffiti the walls with it or anything. So we smuggled one in in Sammy’s shorts.

We got on the trolley to go into the cave and right at the point the tour guide told us the 95° heat would change to a cool 70°, it did!

The kids were amazed by the formations; I especially liked the straws. We weren’t allowed to touch anything except for the Formation of Temptation, or something like that, and other places he told us we could.

He told us the history of the cave and how some DOT people found it while checking the ground in preparation of a new highway. The owner of the land wanted to explore so they dug a huge hole through the ground and dropped him in with a rope. He landed on a pile of prehistoric bat droppings. The only bats that inhabit the cave right now are teeny tiny ones, can’t remember their name. He said, “Imagine a chicken nugget with wings,” and they totally look like that!

Alaethia was so sleepy halfway through the tour that she threw the fit of all fits. Not fun in the confined spaces of the cave “rooms”. Mary and I stayed behind the group, away from the eyes of the tour guide, and gave Alaethia her sippy while trying to put her to sleep. I don’t know how Mary does it. I eventually get Aly to fall asleep, but Mary just rocks her and hums to her and voila! She’s out!

Mary passed her on to Jorge on the way back, since it was kind of slippery and uphill. The boys had such a great time looking around, feeling mysterious and like explorers. Even Jaylen, who hates to even walk through Wal-mart, had a great time and only complained a handful of times about his feet hurting (he’s in such a tattle-telling, whiny mood lately!).

I took tons of pictures; it was so interesting. We were the last tour so we only had a bit of time to look through the gift shop, which sucks because I wanted to look around more and get a souvenir, since I didn’t get one anywhere else. But oh well, at least I got my babe something.

We got some ice cream (I craved a Snickers ice cream bar immediately and had one. I was a naughty diabetic the whole time we were over there!)

Alaethia was moody all the way home. She desperately needed to sleep, but didn’t want to. She’s so dramatic—she’d cover her face with her hands and scream “Aye, aye, ayyyyee!” We heard that till we stopped at a rest stop. I got her down to distract her for a little bit but as soon as she got in the car seat again it was Scream City. She eventually got so tired that she passed out and stayed asleep till we got home at midnight. All the way over I was texting Mario a play-by-play of our location.

We got home and left everything in the car; we were too tired to bother with luggage. The boys slept over at Mary’s and Aly, Mario and I came home and watched TV. Mario surprised me with a Jensen iPod docking station/stereo, which he’d already set up on my desk in our bedroom. He’s so sweet to me. We put Aly in her crib and updated each other on the goings on of the past 4 days. It was so nice to be home!