Visits to San Antonio...

While Dan was at training in San Antonio, Dana became a Road Warrior Princess, and came down to visit a few times. It is a seriously long drive, and Dana made three round trips. The first time she came down, we took a trip to Sea World in San Antonio. It was a beautiful day, but a little too hot and humid for comfort.

We didn't even know that there was a Sea World in San Antonio, nor did we know that Sea World has rides. The rides turned out to be a lot of fun, especially since there were hardly any people in the park. We could just go up to the rides, like this water flume, and hop right on.
Of course, the highlight of any Sea World park is the Orca show. We got to the show right on time for the gates to open, and were able to simply walk in and get great seats. Before the show started, they asked all active military and veterans to stand and be recognized for their service. This was the first time that Dan belonged to that group, and it was both a proud and humbling moment for him, since his service has only just started. Sea World makes a point of honoring service members, going so far as to let them come to the park with their families for free once a year (which we went right ahead and took advantage of, lol).
These trainers have a pretty cool job, aside from the risk of being eaten by their animals. It is amazing what they are able to train these massive predators to do.
There was a new show going on at the park called Azul, which was pretty impressive. It features dolphins, beluga whales, divers and acrobats, and even trained birds and synchronized swimmers. Think Vegas style variety show in the water, a la Sea World.
It was a good day at the park, and a much needed chance for us to get out and have fun together, especially since we knew we would be separated again for multiple weeks.
Other than that trip, we basically hung around the hotel room where Dan has been living, and ordered pizza and rented movies. We both needed the time to reconnect.
This is obviously Dan in his full Army combat uniform, which he wore for the field exercises during training.
The field training was a lot of fun. There were several simulators and activities that were just hilarious, such as this one, which simulates a Hum-Vee rolling over sideways, and is used to train soldiers how to escape such a situation. The vehicle is full of a bunch of heavy foam objects to simulate all the debris that would be flying around in a real accident. It was so much fun that Dan volunteered to go twice.
Of course, no military training would be complete without firearms training. This is the M9 qualification course, where we all got tested on our skill with a Beretta 9mm pistol. That was a really fun day, and Dan did better than he thought he would for his first time on the range, qualifying as a Sharpshooter.
And this is Dan on the day he qualified with the M16. Also a fun day, if only because he was shooting, but the weapon Dan was issued was a piece of crap, and jammed so many times that he was unable to get a full try at qualification.
On Dana's second trip down, we took the opportunity to go to the Hard Rock Cafe in San Antonio, which is right on the riverwalk. The riverwalk is one of San Antonio's major highlights, and is really worth checking out. There is a canal that runs through downtown, and it is bounded by cafes and bars of all kinds. Really cool atmosphere. We were able to meet with Dan's cousin Raymond, who is also in the Army, stationed at Ft. Hood.
This is Raymond, his wife Cathy, and their son Evan. It was great seeing them again and catching up.
This is just a cute little family of ducks that lives in the riverwalk canal. Too cute to pass without taking a picture. In fact, they caused quite a sensation and gathered a really large crowd at one point.
San Antonio is really scenic, and we had a great time just walking around, checking out the sights. We went to the Alamo, which was pretty neat, but smaller than you think it would be.
One of the funner things we did on this visit was go to a drive-through safari just outside of San Antonio. The park is really huge, and they have a ton of exotic animals, mostly African herbivores. The animals just roam around free, and as you can see, come right up to the cars to get feed pellets.
The zebras were pretty exciting. Once they realized we had food to give, they got kind of aggressive, and tried to eat out of the bag between Dan's legs. We literally had to push them out of the car. But it was really cool to have a zebra eat out of your hand and to be so close.
There were all sorts of animals, including these cute little donkeys. They were being ignored by the other park visitors, so we gave them some extra love.
The ostriches were a different story. They were aggressive, ugly, and ornery. There were like ten of them, and they kept attacking the cars as they drove by, presumably trying to get food. But they are none too bright. This one kept pecking our window, which was hilarious. But they are really very large up close, and before we rolled the window up they were pretty scary and intimidating.
The park also has giraffes, but they don't roam free for some reason. If you have ever been close to a giraffe, then you know that they smell remarkably similar to skunks. Yeah, these ones smelled like that, too.
Not all the animals were exotic, but they were all impressive, like these bulls.
And no trip to Texas would be complete without seeing a real Texas Longhorn.
Another highlight was our visit to a restaurant called Papadeux, which specializes in Cajun seafood. We were both feeling adventurous, so we ate a sampler platter of Alligator, crayfish, calamari, and crab. Delicious. Alligator tastes so much like chicken that we asked our waiter to confirm if it was in fact Alligator.
Even though Dana doesn't generally like seafood, especially shrimp and crab, she even admitted that the food was good. The only downside was that they were out of King Crab for Dan, who had to settle for blue-fin tuna.

It was really good for the both of us to spend 2 weekends together during those 9 long weeks apart, especially since one of those weekends was our 10th anniversary.
While Dana tied up all the loose ends in Denver, Dan tried his best learning the ways of the army and passed basic training with flying colors.

Now off to the real adventure.......stay tuned.