This post is dedicated to my dear friend and aunt-in-law:
Cyndi Crammer
Read on to find out why I would dedicate a post to this dear lady...........
When we last left, we had visited the church in the plaza-San Fernando. We were getting hungry and knew we could find something authentic and interesting to eat at the Mexican Market. Plus, my sister said that there was lots of good shopping. So we headed west. The streets in San Antonio are very tidy. But man, was it getting hot and humid! My hair is the pits when it is humid. it looks flat and straight. My daughter and husband on the other hand.....BOING-g-g-g says it all! So they were curly, and I was flat. Harrison looks normal. Maybe that is why he has started walking either 20 paces in front of us or 20 paces in back of us! At any rate we were feeling the heat as we walked along. We didn't really know how far we would have to walk. My sister said we should take a taxi, but my readers know how I feel about taxi's.... Bone Collector and all of that....besides, I am really just a small town person at heart. If I needed to get somewhere in Wolcott without my car, I would walk or ride my bike, so there you have it.
On our way, we saw the old governor's palace. At first Mike thought the city hall building was the governor's palace (he was reading from some kind of little brochure.) So we stood and oooed and aahhed in front of city hall, marveling at how they could have built such a building in such a remote place so long ago. I was fantasizing about being the governor's wife living in that huge limestone mansion. Then Mike said, "Oh, this isn't it! This is city hall! There it is over there!" Below you will see the corresponding picture. Not really a palace....easy to believe that it was constructed before 1836. There was a fee to tour it.....we opted to peek quickly in one window while the lady guarding the door wasn't looking. If it would have been a palace like city hall....well, I might have taken the bait and toured, but a pueblo??? We kept walking.
As we came upon a kitschy shop, I asked the lady outside if we were close to the Mexican Market. She pointed just a block away! Ooooh, the money was starting to jiggle in my pockets, the excitement of what might be for sale was making my heart pound hard. Then at the end of the block before the Mexican Market, WHAT did I see?????? Could it be????? It wasn't????? It WAS!!!!!
It was GW!!!!!!!!!!!! I started snapping pictures! Aunt Cyndi would never believe this!!!!! And was that the old fashioned face icon on the sign? It was!
When you have been married to someone for 20 years, you can sense what your significant other is thinking even when that person doesn't say or even show with expressions what he is thinking. Michael was shouting in his head: God, why have you forsaken me?! Did you have to put a Goodwill store right in her path?!!! "Now Michael," I began, "I know we are on vacation, but don't you want to see what kind of junk they have in Texas?" "Why, of course, honey! I would love to see the inside of a Goodwill store in Texas" (NOT!) I could feel his eyes bugging out behind my back.
You might think, now why would this nice husband and his children not want to indulge his kind wife in a bit of store shopping? That would be because.....Are you here with me Cyndi???....when I shop at GW, I look at everything in the store. That is right, everything. "Doesn't that take hours?" you might ask. The answer to that is YES! Don't knock it until you've tried it. People gush at me on a regular basis asking where I found this or that. You wouldn't believe the great stuff you can get at Goodwill when you look at everything on a regular basis. I don't even bother with garage sales anymore. :) Cyndi loves to hit GW on Saturday mornings. After spending 4 hours in GW and checking out, she turned to her husband and said, "Do you want to go to another Goodwill in another part of the city?" Once again the buggy eyes of the husband. Her husband Brian was like, "Are you serious??!!!" Alas, the answer is "yes!" We can spend 4 hours in each of the 3 Lafayette stores. For a 12 hour shopping day! Never shop Goodwill with your friends, though. If you both see something you like, there is rarely two of the item.
At any rate, it was a cool reprieve. As we stepped through the doors, the nasty Goodwill scent assaulted our nostrils. But the cool air felt so good. Besides when I am on the hunt for a great deal, I can over look the stink. This GW had a lunch bar....I don't like GW enough to eat food there. In fact....ewww! gross! The color of the day was only a dollar off, instead of 50% off. Bummer. Found that out the hard way at the check out. Obviously, I didn't look thoroughly through every thing like I would at home, but I did find a dress to take home with me. Harrison found some books to read on the train ride home....Score! And we used the bathroom to boot! Plus filled our water bottles with cold water. Yay! I secretly thought I might sneak back after I got the family back at the hotel to do some intense shopping, but I didn't. Besides, I had to consider that I had to get anything that I bought home on the train.
As we entered the market, there was Latin music and lots of wares out on the street. Very authentic...But hot. Then we saw that they cheated to please the customers and built 2 huge malls that are air conditioned. So you can just go from shop to shop inside the nice cool building.
We located a Mexican restaurant called La Marguarita. We were shown to our seats quickly, since it was probably past the lunch crowd. Very authentic food and people. Loved, loved, loved it. Mike gave the guitar player mariachi man some money to come over and play a romantic song for us while we ate chips and waited for our food. The decor was nice. It was well done. The air was cool and the food delish.
This is what the kids and I ordered:
See the hot pepper? We gave Mike our peppers. He gingerly ate one and found it mild, so he stuck the next one in his mouth, whole.
It was so bad, bad, hot that he couldn't breathe! Nothing would put the fire out. I snapped a picture to commemorate the moment. We went to the Mexican bakery, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to eat anything else! We were excited to see some Dolce Le Coco. Last year in 7th grade Harrison had the option to do several different portfolios for his social studies project. Our kids attend a public online school, so our school is a little different. (See my posts from the Grand Canyon Blog) As part of his portfolio, he cooked up some Dolce Le Coco. We were eager to taste the real thing and see if his culinary skills were up to par, matching the real thing. We made a note to come back tomorrow to get some Dolce Le Coco.
We shopped every little store, nook, and cranny. It was quite fun. A bystander would have heard things like, "Hey, Janelle look at this!" and "Check this out, Natalie" and "Well, I only have $12 because I spent all my money before we went on vacation." and "Maybe these expensive scarves would be worth this price if we both share them!" After a while, we began to notice that every store had about the same thing as the last store and the prices were all exactly the same. Kind of like they all ordered bulk from Oriental Trader....Errr.....Mexican Trader.
After having shopped all the shops we were about ready to head back to our comfy hotel to just do hotel things, when I saw a little corner shop we hadn't visited yet. It was a leather shop. It smelled divine. I spotted some cowboy hats in the back of the shop that reminded me of McLeod's Daughters-My favorite Australian TV show. I was really hooked on it last year, watching all 9 seasons in one year. Where ever do I find the time???? Must be why I don't have time to scrapbook our fun vacations anymore! These hats were really cool to me. I kind of wanted one. Even though I NEVER wear a hat.....flat hair and all of that! Harrison decided it was just the thing to replace his lost hat. When I saw the price I couldn't believe it! It was only $20! We bought the hat and headed home. It became apparent that Natalie no longer was loving her cloche hat now that Harrison had a leather cowboy hat. She kept stealing it and messing with it. Oh, she wanted one so badly, but alas, she had already blown her money before we had taken off on vacation.
Harrison may or may not have slept in the hat that night.
Flash back to the early years. My dad had given Harrison a boxed set of VHS Lone Ranger shows to watch when he was 4. It was instant love. He featured himself as the Lone Ranger, never taking off his red cowboy hat until he set foot for the first time in the school building. Evey Halloween, he was a cowboy. One year, I bought him a Clifford the Big Red Dog costume for Halloween. It was an excellent costume, and he said at the time he wanted to be Clifford. We went next door on Halloween to visit our elderly next door neighbor lady in our costumes. Harrison was not happy. He was very embarrassed to wear a silly costume. I couldn't understand what the problem was. Finally, he said, "I'll just be a cowboy again this year." Which was his mantra for the next several Halloweens until he discovered.....Luke Skywalker. It was nice for Mike and I to see our not so little boy enjoying being a cowboy again.....
I watch tv while I scrapbook, that is the secret! :)
ReplyDeleteHmmm....I'll have to try that!
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