Wow, what a weekend. I believe this best sums up what happened:
camaraderie
–noun, comradeship; good-fellowship.
Rob planned for my bachelor party a trip to San Antonio, TX. The agenda was Six Flags on Saturday, and the Alamo on Sunday before coming home.
My excitement really began when we picked up the rental van on Friday. I was already looking forward to the trip, but once I saw the actual van I knew already what was to be my favorite part: The ride together. There’s a lot to talk about, and to learn about each other, when you’re crammed together for 12 hours at a time.
All in all the actual road trip was uneventful (luckily). We encountered some congested traffic, wrecks, and VERY crazy road conditions both ways. Oh yeah, to the roads in Beaumont, Texas, screw you. Seemingly at times the concrete barriers were squishing you into the other vehicles at interstate speeds.
We arrived at our hotel, The Knights Inn, at roughly 3AM Saturday. After the van and bladders were unloaded, everyone crashed pretty hard. Everyone’s sentiments were “Lets not get up early, and there’s no scheduled plan.” Worked for me. Everyone more (Branden) or less (Rob, Havard, Jake) woke up around 9-9:30AM. Our first event of the day was Denny’s (right across from the hotel); Denny’s is always delicious! Post pancake pandemonium, a short 10-15 minute trip up the road we found ourselves at the gates of the Six Flags Fiesta theme park. We arrived right around noon, and knew right away that coming towards the end of the season was a good plan. We were able to park fairly close in a practically empty parking lot (considering the size of the lot).
Everyone prepaid for their tickets online and we all had ticket print outs. This resulted in a super fast entrance (Also note, there were no entry lines, we walked straight in!). Once we were in the gates, it was on like Donkey Kong, so to speak. I have very little experience with roller coasters and theme parks, so this was a nervous/exciting experience for me. We all agreed we would ride the Goliath as our first coaster. It was also the closest to the entrance. The Goliath is an inverted coaster, meaning that the seat attachment is above your head and your feet are dangling. It’s hard to describe the insanity of the Goliath, but I think it lasts somewhere around 20-30 seconds. Being my first real twisty, turny, upside-downy, coaster, it was a religious experience.
I won’t describe in detail all of the coasters (we have some videos to prove that!), but we hit up almost every single ride in the park. One of the last couple rides we did was the Gully Washer. It’s a water rafting ride that thrashes around concrete walls and wooden, spinning tumblers. Little did we know that toward the end of the ride was a waterfall. About half of us got soaked, the other half was on the lucky side. Since the day wasn’t very hot, there wasn’t much to dry us out except riding more roller coasters!
We stayed until they closed, which was 6PM if I remember correctly. It just occured to me that time had very little meaning for me this weekend. I just didn’t care what was going on of if we got there fast. Leaving the park, we headed back to the rooms for a much needed change of clothes and refreshing before dinner.
At Branden’s suggestion, we ate at Pappadeaux’s restaurant. It’s a seafood/cajun style place with a good atmosphere. The place was very packed, and our wait time was estimate around 1 to 1.5 hours. I think in total we waited a little over an hour. All I can say about this place: phenominal. The food was a flavor orgasm, every single bite. I’m not kidding when I say all 8 of us repeated over and over “That was the best (insert food) i’ve ever eaten!”. It was also great that we all shared food, passed around plates, etc. Everybody got to taste everything. In our eating frenzy, the liquor and beer was almost free flowing. I personally had a pina colada, two long island ice teas (large glasses), and a glass(maybe two?) of red wine. Needless to say I was feeling pretty good.
After dinner we headed to the historic river walk/Alamo area in downtown. What a beautiful place. The alamo at night was beautiful (I tried to take pictures, we’ll see how those come out). On the river walk there are no rails protecting you from the river as you walk around. Granted it’s not a raging river, and I don’t imagine it to be too deep, but it added to whole experience. We walked up one side for a bit, went into a gift store, and then hit up a mexican restuarant. This is where things get fuzzy. Mark ordered one of their large pitchers of frozen Margaritas, and we both proceeded to guzzle the thing. After that we went back to to the river walk, and headed down our original path towards the van. We left the area and headed back to the hotel room.
The next morning we planned to go back to the Alamo for a real tour. It’s amazing being inside a piece of history, and actually getting to touch some of the cannons that were used, the walls, and the artifacts that are out for public display.
On our way back home we stopped at the Ikea in Houston. Also another amazing experience. I can see furnishing my whole house from Ikea 
All in all this was one of the most incredible weekends i’ve ever had. I have tons of pictures to upload to my flickr account, which i’ll start working on tonight.
Jake, Mark, Rob, Matthew, Rory, Havard, Branden – You guys are awesome.
We have to iron out the details of both goals, which I think we’ll do tomorrow.
