San Antonio USA

Well  here we are. Yesteŕday wàs our first real day of the holiday. Prior to that we  had been simply arriving. The flights went well and I have to say that the little man at Qantas has managed to get the message across to staff that friendly service is important. We managed to fight our way out of the complexity of Dallas airport with a minimum of the usual frustrations and the help of a friendly taxi driver who redirected us to the appropriate shuttle for our hotel.
Yesterday was also our first obligatory trip to Walmart. This was to purxhase an American sim card and for Bob to buy a pair of jeans. We have the sim but don't expect any texts from us until after we leave Lou and Mike bexause it is for 30 days and we won't activate it while  we have access to their phones so that the 30 days lasts until we are nearly due to leave.  We didn't get out of Walmart  with Jeans alone of course but we did keep the purchases to a fairly minimal amount. After grumbling about the price of the taxi fare to get ourselves to the shopping centre Bob was cock a hoop when he found a pair (last one) of his favourite style of Wranglers and then waa charged only $7.  His mood became even more mellow when we went to a needby chain restaurant, Twin Peaks for a cold drink and then lunch. We were greated by a cluster of scantily dressed young  women who had obviously been employed because of their "twin peaks". We watched in fascination as this huge  place rapidly filled with clientele some of whom ordered the local brews but most of whom were there for the food. It filled in an hour and a half of our orningvery comfortably. Typically I managed to eat about 1/3 of the platter of nachos that was put in front of me but  Bob polished off his burger and fries without difficulty.
Mike and Lou arrived to collect us soon after we were settled back in the hotel foyer. Lou had attended a workshop in Ada before they were free to set off and they had had a taste of some irritating traffic before meeting us. Unfortunatetely we were able to empathise all too soon as the traffic on the freeway from Dallas to San Antonio rapidly denied the description of free flowing. There had been roadworks along the way and even though there was no machinery working the traffic became bottle necked every so often and travel was slow. The crowning incident was a major accident just past Austin which absolutely slopped the communter traffic leaving the city. We were luckily diverted to a side road but even here we sat for long periods and only crawled forward until we were well past the site. This added an hour and a half to the expected 4 hour trip. However the very comfortable motel Mike had booked soon had us feeling in the mood to relax and enjoy our  dinner. We were close to all the action and the recepttion staff directed us to one of the towns best loved Mexican restaurants in the Market Place area. Over a delicious frozen Margerita and great food we realised that dining at 9pm had lots of advantages in terms of avoiding crowds and allowing us to enjoy our meal in the cooler evening air outside instead of in the crowded airconditioned interior of the restaurant.
We didn't even have a coffee as the very comfortable king sized bed demanded our attention.
So finished Day 1.