Monday morning, April 2nd we were up early driving to the
airport to catch a flight to San Antonio.
My friend, Peg, moved there ten years ago. We used to attend a Bible study together when
Kaleb was just a baby. She’s been good
about keeping in touch ever since and at Christmas she wrote to us asking when
we’d come down and visit her. I figured,
“Why not now,” so we booked tickets to visit during Spring Break. What a good choice that was.
Our flight was without incident, which is always the way
travel should be. She picked us up right
on time and drove us to the nearest Whole Foods Market so I could buy food that
Kory can eat. I’d done my menu planning
before we arrived, and even made out my shopping list. I told Peg I’d do the cooking all week because
of Kory’s dietary restrictions. She was
fine with that and we ate comfort food like spaghetti, tacos, burgers and pizza
– but all with ingredients that contain no fat.
Poor Kory, he needs some fat on his bones, but certainly not wrapped
around his heart, so the challenge to feed him continues.
Tuesday morning Peg took us along to the food bank where she
volunteers once a week. It runs a little
like Love, Inc. where people have to register and take some basic classes before
they are able to get food and free clothing.
She is the intake person and has the sweetest disposition of anyone I
know. She is bubbly, enthusiastic and
can turn any situation into something positive.
She’s a good one for people to encounter when they are down on their
luck. She put me to work sorting through
donated clothes and Kory and Kaleb worked in the kitchen unloading food from trucks
and making lunches for the homeless.
That organization is smart with their resources. I had to decide in which pile to put each
piece of clothing. If it was nearly new
and could easily resell, it went in a basket they took over to their thrift
store so they could sell it for cash to get money to buy more food. If it was slightly used but everything else
was fine on it, I put it on a hanger and hung it up in their shop for people to
take for free. If it had stains or was
otherwise not too nice, it got recycled to send off to Mexico or other
charities, and if it was really terrible, it got thrown out. Some people just use charities to dump their
stuff rather than pay to haul it away.
It was good to be on the other side of donations, as I often purge and
leave boxes of things on my porch for charities to pick up. Men’s clothes are the most needed item as the
woman that works there said, “Men wear their clothes until they are thread-bare
but women will get rid of things they’ve just worn once.” It’s true.
Kory still has clothes in his closet from the 1970s. Every time he puts them on, I have a hissy
fit and make him take them off, but he still won’t get rid of them because they
still fit and they are “perfectly good” in his opinion. Oh, brother.
Kaleb absolutely loved his work in the kitchen, sorting and
putting away food, then making sack lunches.
It was such a good experience for him and makes me realize how much more
our vacations need to have added meaning to them. I think our days of just being tourists are soon over.
We zipped home for lunch before heading downtown to see the
Alamo. I was expecting this trip to be
another homeschool fieldtrip for Kaleb, but he looked at it like he was truly
on vacation and he shut his brain down from actually trying to learn
anything. I wasn’t too thrilled with his
attitude but we made him go through the Alamo grounds and read some of the
plaques anyway. We were hoping Peg’s
husband Don could join us since he’s an expert on all things Alamo, but he
wasn’t feeling well that day so he stayed home.
Peg tried to fill his very big shoes, as it were, and tell us details
about the battle. She answered many of
our questions as we were standing in front of the replicated miniature battle
scene. All the employees/volunteers were
busy so she was happy to tell us all she knew.
Many folks gathered round to hear her talking with such authority on the
subject. Only when we got home and
talked with Don did we realize all her information was bogus. Boy did we have a good laugh about that
wondering how many school children might write up their report on the Alamo
based on the woman they heard talking about it while they were there.
The Alamo itself can be viewed in just a few minutes, so
afterwards we walked around in downtown San Antonio along the River Walk, which
is a lovely asset to the city. Sidewalks
run along both sides of the meandering “river” (it’s more like a large creek in
my estimation but then again, not every river is the Columbia). Arched bridges cross over every so often
along the three and a half mile course, and artwork hangs down from under some
of the overpasses. Small tourist boats
take people up and down and all around and many nice shops and restaurants make
it a great place to spend the day.
We walked on over to the cultural museum where an old lady
helped Kaleb spin some wool into yarn.
He made an itchy bracelet from the wool, which had been dyed in
Kool-aid. Funny. It was an interesting museum – highlighting
all the different people groups that make up the great state of Texas. The Norwegians were well represented but I
think we have more Norwegian artifacts in our house than they had in that
museum, but it would be hard to find any place with more stuff than we have in
our house.
Peg drove us all over town, which was
great. She drove us through all the cool
neighborhoods with awesome houses we’d never see on our own. Kory and I had visited San Antonio twenty
years ago but we only saw the River Walk and the Alamo, so it was very nice to
see so much more of the city – all from a local’s perspective. Overall, my big surprise in Texas was how green it is. They’ve had a two year drought so we came at
the right time now as they had rain this past winter so the whole countryside
was green and lush and the wildflowers were everywhere. How sweet it is. The heat also felt nice on our bones - in the 80s for most of the week. We needed that.
(Stay tuned for more posts about the trip. I’ve just been super busy since we got home
and we had no wi-fi connection in Texas so I couldn’t post anything.)
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