After the tour in Corpus Christi and San Antonio

My parents and I spent two nights in Corpus Christi at the Best Western Marina Grand hotel which is on the waterfront in the downtown area, across from the marina. Both mornings we enjoyed the view at the 11th floor breakfast buffet.

After a long spell of miserably humid weather, the storm brought cooler temperatures (mid 80's) and moderate humidity for a few days.

Morning twilight from my hotel balcony in Corpus Christi.

We visited the nearby Texas State Aquarium. It has very good educational exhibits about the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. At the dolphin show a splashing dolphin got me very wet and salty.

Looking towards downtown Corpus Christi from the Texas State Aquarium.

View from the aquarium, under the US 190 bridge. Refineries surround the port of Corpus Christi.

In the afternoon I went to a bike shop to get bike boxes and I bought a large roll of packing tape at Walgreens.

After dinner we walked along the waterfront. Just before sunset the marina has a nice distant view of the USS Lexington aircraft carrier. Before this tour I didn't know that retired aircraft carriers have been converted to museums. By coincidence, the start and finish points of this tour have aircraft carrier museums.

Telephoto view of the USS Lexington museum from the Corpus Christi marina.

Also in the marina is a statue of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez who was the first huge Tejano music star. She had 14 top-ten Latin singles and sold 60 million albums. In 1993, at age 23, she was murdered by the president of her fan club.

Selena, the Tejano music star who was murdered at age 23.

Later in the evening I spent 2 hours disassembling and packing my bike. The frame, racks, fenders, and helmet went in a bike box. I had to lengthen the bike box a bit to accommodate the long recumbent frame. The seat is too wide to go in the bike box, so I made a custom box for the seat.

Bike ready to ship home via UPS. Frame in the big box, seat in the small box.

Both rims need to be replaced. The front hub has 25,000 miles and the rear hub has 15,000 miles. It didn't make sense to pay to ship worn out wheels, so I abandoned the wheels in Corpus Christi. The rear cassette was new at the beginning of the tour, so I had the bike shop remove it so I could ship it home.

Cracked front rim *after* reducing the tire pressure to 30 psi.

On the morning of April 19 I shipped the bike stuff at a UPS store. $158 for the bike and $24 for the seat. This was long before I learned about bikeflights.com.

Then my parents drove me from Corpus Christi (Body of Christ) to San Antonio (Saint Anthony), where we spent 4 nights. My wife flew in from Portland to join us. We stayed at the El Tropicano hotel which is on the downtown riverwalk, but half a mile from the main entertainment district. I didn't mind that it's quieter and cheaper. The weather continues to be comparatively cool (mid 80's) with moderate humidity.

We had a small family reunion with my parents visiting from Fort Worth, my brother and his wife visiting from Austin, their eldest daughter visiting from Bryan, TX, plus me and my wife visiting from Oregon.

5 days after the tour I'm still the guy with the tan.

San Antonio is familiar to me because I went to high school there. We didn't spend much time visiting tourist sites. We did go to El Mercado, the Botanical Garden, and the Witte Museum. And we walked along the riverwalk quite a bit.

*The Alamo* started as Mission San Antonio in 1724. In the early 1800's it was converted to a Spanish cavalry fort.Texian rebels captured it from Mexican forces in 1835 but 3 months later were defeated by a large army led by General Santa Ana.Texians ultimately won the war and the Alamo became a shrine rich in martyr history and folklore.

The riverwalk was built by the Works Progress Administration in the late 1930's.The socialist "make work" project stimulated development of a massive capitalist tourism industry.

On our last morning in San Antonio my wife and I walked the new 1.3 mile Museum Reach section of riverwalk which goes upstream from our hotel to the Pearl brewery.

We left San Antonio on April 23, just in time to avoid the biggest events in San Antonio's annual Fiesta. As we left the hotel at noon, decorated barges were assembling in front of the hotel. In the evening the river parade will attract 700,000 spectators. I was happy to leave the riverwalk before the river parade.

Parade barges in front of El Tropicano hotel.

The weather forecast was good, so my wife and I were hoping for no flight delays. Unfortunately, our flight to Dallas/Fort Worth was delayed 2+ hours due to mechanical problems. That forced us to get a much later flight to Portland, arriving at midnight (2 AM Central time). We stayed in a motel in suburban Portland and finally got home late the next morning on April 24. UPS delivered the bike two days later.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	2
Comment on this entry	Comment	0