Last morning with our rental car, so we decided to make the best of it.
After having one more breakfast in our hotel (the usual - waffles, sausage, yogurt, juice, etc.) we rushed around to get ready to go to the Botanical Garden, which we THOUGHT opened at 8. When we got to the center, we should have known when we saw hardly any cars in the parking lot. Sure enough, when we walked in (the gate was open so it looked promising), they notified that the gardens don't open until 9 and the train doesn't start running until 10. So, since it was only 8:30, we decided to leave and instead drove around Tingley Beach again. This time we were able to get out and walk around one of the ponds, watching all the ducks and geese doing their thing.
From there, we drove back towards our hotel so that we could go to the nearby Starbucks. Once we were done with Starbucks, we made the decision to go ahead and go BACK to the Botanical Garden and try to ride that train. Lots more cars in the parking lot this time. We go in, pay our entrance fee and then head for the train station and wait in line. We thought the train would leave at 10, the people there told us it comes at 10:15. At around 10:20 or so, a train came but passed right on by us, saying they had to turn around. Crazy. So, now it's getting later and later and we are running out of time to return to the hotel to pack up and get the rental car back to Enterprise by 1pm. After figuring out how long this train thing would take, we decided to get out of line, ask for our money back and leave the gardens. Well, there were people in line to buy tickets so there was no one we could ask if we could get a refund without wasting MORE time waiting in line. So, we did the next best thing, and that was we decided to at least visit the aquarium. Which turned out to be a good thing, because at least it was air conditioned in there. We enjoyed the aquarium very much, and of course, at the exit of the aquarium is a gift shop. Mom wanted to look around in there, and I wanted to go out and see a LITTLE bit of the gardens, so we agreed to meet in the courtyard at 11. What I saw of the gardens was very pretty and I enjoyed the model railroad garden too (which when Mom was done, we rushed over to look at).
We got back to the hotel in good time to pack up and drive to the rental car place. We got the car there with 5 minutes to spare. After being shocked that they would NOT be able to take us to the airport, we had no choice but to have them take us back to our hotel, from where we called a taxi to take us to the airport. We were hoping to avoid one more taxi fare, but oh well.
We had about a 3 hour wait in the airport, but we read the paper, enjoyed an ice cream and just took it easy.
Our flight to Denver was good. We had about an hour and a half wait in Denver for our next flight.
Whoa, the turbulence on the flight to San Antonio!!!! And as luck would have it, I was not in my seat. The beverage cart had passed, so I asked the two people sitting next to me to let me out so that I could go to the bathroom. Our seats were two rows away from the back, close to the bathroom so when I got out of the bathroom, I hadn't been out more than 15 seconds and was just about to get to my row (the people had noticed I came out and had already gotten up to let me in) when the most incredible turbulence hit. I have never experienced turbulence while standing and it was unreal. It felt like my knees were buckling under me and at the same time, I could not lift my legs at all to continue walking. It was the weirdest and scariest feeling. The plane was shaking so bad and I knew I just needed to get into my seat and get buckled! Twice the sensation was there of my knees almost being brought to the ground and feeling like I was paralyzed and couldn't lift my legs. Finally, I stumbled to my seat, and looked outside and saw incredible lightning going on. We were going RIGHT THROUGH a thunderstorm. The other two people got back in their seats, too, and pretty much right after we got seated, the turbulence lessened and then we were out of the storm. The guy who was sitting next to me was kind of in awe also about what had just happened. We were the only 3 people up at that time (besides the stewardesses) and the guy kept talking about how awesome that was to feel like your knees were giving out and of being stuck to the floor. Of course, we agreed that it was awesome NOW, knowing that we came out of it ok. But while it was happening, it was quite scary.
We got into San Antonio at 11:30pm, Kathy and Chris were there to pick us up and she dropped us off at Mom's house, where I spent the night. Mom and I had a very nice trip.
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