I received notice from my mother that my high school class reunion was about to occur. The reunion committee sent the notice to her house; I'm not even sure how they got her address.
I talked with my girlfriend about this and we decided to make a trip out of it. It was very last minute and I knew this would be a tough test on our relationship. BTW, did I mention that we were going to drive the 1100 miles (each way)?
We started off on Wednesday night (August 6th) after I got out of work. We made it to Las Cruces, NM were we stayed the night at my aunt and uncle's house. This is the first time for my girlfriend to meet any member of my family. My aunt wouldn't let us go to sleep till about 2am! We woke up that morning around 8am, had breakfast and took off for San Antonio, TX. We made it to SA around 4pm and checked into the Red Roof Express near downtown. This hotel was nice at a great price. The parking was plentiful and free and the Internet was also free (you needed to get a connection card to enter a daily access code). We were only about 1 block away from the Riverwalk mall and thus the Riverwalk itself.
On Thursday night, we walked the Riverwalk and ate at Cafe Ole. We had a huge plate of chicken and steak fajitas and my gf got a margarita. The margarita was awesome. We had to order another glass 'cause we downed it so quickly. After dinner, we were both so full that I thought I was going to pass out into the Riverwalk!
Friday we spent some time at the mall. I forgot to pack t-shirts and it is so humid and hot that I was kicking myself for not bringing any loose and light shirts. I bought two shirts that were on sale and one which is now one of my new favorite shirts. When we asked the sales man about the size, he mentioned that the med would be too small for me and I should get a large. He was an Asian, gayish man...and it was just funny how he said. My gf was trying to get me to buy the shirts too small so that I would end up giving them to her.
We decided to go visit Shamoo at Sea World. We spent most of the day at the park and had a bit of an issue. I wanted to ride a roller coaster that was kinda rough, but my gf decided to "just say no!". I didn't want to wait in line and ride this coaster on my own, so I was a little disappointed. When we got back to our hotel, we decided to get more margaritas at the Cafe Ole restaurant. It was ugly! We ended up not talking, arguing and just ignoring one another. When we decided to leave, I let her guide us back (remember, we are only about 1 block away from our hotel). We ended up in the worst part of the ghetto! I joked that we started seeing dead people, which just were the homeless people sleeping on the streets. But after a bit more walking, the "dead" people were no longer in sight (this was not good). We stop at a crossing which was a feed to the freeway. We waited for about 25 minutes before my gf realized that you had to press the cross button to get the cross signal to come up. REALLY? Finally a glimmer of hope. I can finally see the glowing sign of our Red Roof hotel, but we had to first cross the darkest part of the ghetto area that only had a single bar (Krazy's, I think was the name) lighting up part of an intersection.
We made it alive!
Saturday morning, we made up with the usually couples make-up routine and tried to leave for Houston. I did say "tried". My truck had a metal pin stuck in the rear right tire. I changed it in the parking garage and spent the next 5 hours trying to find a Discount Tire to replace it!!! After a long wait and $125, I had a cheap, no white label, tire mounted. Now we are really off to Houston...really.
About 2 of driving we made it to downtown Houston. The Double Tree hotel was very close by to our off ramp and the valet was impressive. We checked and and got our warm cookies. The room was "swanky" nice. The view was from the 14th floor and just as nice. We started off by working out at the hotel's gym, which was small but nice. After about 1.5 hours at the gym we got ready for the reunion party. The room was kinda small, everyone was talking to everyone and I felt a bit uncomfortable. We immediately met up with someone who called out my name. It was Steve, someone how used to work at Taco Bell with my older sister. I was a bit surprised that he was at my reunion, since I thought he graduated before me. We then got some finger foods and met some other of my old class mates (JJ, Brian, ??). We walked outside the room and we talked on our own for a bit. I ended up telling my gf about some of my dark secrets from my past. I'm not too sure this was the best thing for me to do. It ended up back firing on me during our drive back. More about that later.
We decided to leave the reunion party and walk around downtown. As we were leaving, I heard someone call out my name. It was Jeff from my class. He and his gf went outside with us to just talk. This was probably the most memorable moments of the entire trip. I learned so much about Jeff and his past. Even though Jeff and I didn't spend a lot of time together during our High School years, I spent the most time with him during this reunion.
After our talk, my gf and I decided to do that walk downtown. We found the "hot spot" and stepped into an Irish Pub and had a drink. Walking back to our hotel we ran into a lot of tall, beautiful women. We both enjoyed this walk back.
Sunday morning and now for the long ride back. We tried finally found a place to get breakfast and my gf took over the driving. OMG, this was a nice change. I really enjoyed watching the Seinfeld episodes and just dozing off. We had two arguments dealing with lack of trust on my gf's side. I tried to convince her that there was nothing going on but it just wasn't enough. This sucks. We got home around 10pm and I asked her to not spend the night at my place and for her to go home. Let the drama begin. Needless to say, it went over badly. She finally went home and we didn't speak for about a week.
I text'ed my ex-gf and told her we can still be friends and that she owed me 1/2 the cost of the hotels. She finally responded with an email that just flamed me to hell. She mentioned that she wasn't going to pay me the agreed upon hotel cost because she cooked for me in the past. Huh? I'm not playing these childish games. I guess I learned a $150 lesson.
We finally made up and now whenever she talks about this trip, she says "it wasn't that bad". I'm starting to wonder if we were both on the same trip.
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