Snobbery, Nausea, and Taco Cabana

Monday

Monday was set aside for Six Flags. But on the way to San Antonio on Saturday, we saw the biggest factory outlet complex I've ever seen, so we thought we'd stop in for an hour or two on our way down. Well, that was an ambitious time estimate. This place was HUGE. It's located in San Marcos, right between Austin and San Antonio, and has two large outlet malls adjacent to each other: Prime Outlets and Tanger Outlets. We went on a spree. Unfortunately, I had to be very selective, being unemployed and such, but I did find just a few gems I'd been searching for for months, like a pair of shorts that doesn't look like clown pants on my skinny legs, brown shoes I can dress up or dress down, and a couple of pairs of pants for business casual dress.

On the Prime Outlets side, we stopped to browse some stores we couldn't afford to actually shop in, where the sales reps sized us up as soon as we stepped in as if we obviously were out of our league. Seriously? You're joking, right?

I mean, I'd experienced that in Beverly Hills, but an outlet store in Texas? When it happened in Beverly Hills, I just nodded to them casually, smiled, and went about browsing. I questioned them confidently, not sheepishly, didn't choke or gawk at the prices, and asked to try on something I really liked. If you just act like you belong there, remember the salespeople are there to help you, and regard the clothes as nice but nothing extravagant, I think it throws 'em off and makes them question whether you maybe really do intend to buy something.

Anyway, in the Giorgio Armani store, an older woman asked us, in what I thought was a somewhat condescending tone, "Have you ever shopped at our stores before?" Really? I stopped myself from saying, "Listen, Sweetcakes, you don't work on Rodeo Drive, we didn't just hop off the buggy to marvel at your fancy wares, and this is an outlet store, so go help some yuppy with hideous taste who wants to buy something expensive and gaudy (and, this being an outlet, last-season) just because they can and don't even try that crap with me, Toots." Instead, I just decided to shrug it off, assume she didn't mean it to be snobbish or condescending, half-smiled, blinked, and continued browsing, leaving the response to Ty.

Well, we had arrived at the outlets a bit before 10:00 am, planning to be at Six Flags by 1:00 at the latest, which meant we needed to be done at the outlets by noon. I don't typically enjoy shopping, but I guess the magic of outlets as far as the eye can see seduced us, and we were finally back on the road by, oh, 3:00 or so. Being shorter on time than we'd planned, we opted not to search for good fast food and instead went to what is apparently a Texas standard: Whataburger. I said, "Oh, kind of like In 'n Out is to California?" Eh, in a sense, but this was no In 'n Out. I did it for the experience, but it is not on my list of recommended or even acceptable eating establishments. That bacon cheeseburger sat in my stomach for a full day and a half before my body reluctantly allowed it passage.

A severely greasy artery assault, some mild indigestion, and one hour later, we finally arrived at Six Flags in Fiesta. Mind you, I've never been much for thrill rides, and I'd never been to a Six Flags. I'd been to Silverwood. I'd been to the U.S. Disney parks. But never a park that's all about the coasters. I was mildly apprehensive, but I thought, "Hey, new experiences, right?"



I had a blast. We started with the Goliath. Short but fun. Then Boomerang, which tried ejecting my cheeseburger by sheer backwards force. Road Runner (wimpy). ...then Superman. Ah, yeah. That was the stuff. Loved it. We went on the water raft thing (with on of the most adorable little boys ever clinging to his mom but laughing the whole time) and got soaked, and then on to Poltergeist (I couldn't help but laugh in nervous anticipation of our turn when the people before us were launched away unexpectedly at the speed of light so fast you could barely hear them scream), Scream (which wasn't as freaky as Stratosphere, probably just because it wasn't on top of a huge tower), another water ride (which plays the mean trick of filling with water and drenching your feet), Tony Hawk (I liked the spinning, Ty didn't so much)...basically every coaster there. We did some twice, and Superman three times. It was the perfect day to go: beautiful weather, warm but not hot, and almost NO lines. We walked right onto several rides. I think the longest we ever waited was around 10-15 minutes.


A couple of videos I found on YouTube for those who would like to virtually ride the Superman Krypton Coaster and the Poltergeist:



I was feeling fine but could tell I was nearing my limit about three and a half hours in. Ty, however, wasn't feeling it yet, apparently, so we went on the Superman again. Whose idea was it to buy that lemonade? No, no... But we survived. Then I said we needed to be in front, so we went one last time, and as we headed up the incline, Ty turned to me and said he thought he was done after this. I was glad. But we had one more ride to make, and I was determined to enjoy it. Afterwards, we gingerly walked to the booth where we bought our favorite pictures from the day, stopped at a Target to buy Tums, and drove to homebase, unable to eat anything for dinner. I rolled down the window on the freeway to keep fresh air on my face and went to sleep trying to ignore the nausea. We stopped at an H.E.B. store to buy some Blue Bell ice cream on the way by recommendation of our hosts, and back at their place, we broke out 4 pints of it: dutch chocolate, strawberries and homemade vanilla, cookie dough, and mint chocolate chip. It's good stuff, Blue Bell. They also gave us some leftovers to munch on. All I could eat was cereal and cottage cheese, but it was nice to finally be able to eat again. And the nausea was TOTALLY worth getting that front row seat on Superman.


Tuesday

I flew out Tuesday morning at 8:30. That is, I was supposed to fly out then. And would have, had we hopped on the freeway southbound instead of northbound. Unfortunately, by the time Ty realized we were going the wrong way, turned around, and backtracked, we had added at least a half hour to our trip, which also meant we did not, as we had planned, beat the morning rush hour traffic, and we arrived at the airport 15-20 minutes after my flight departed. They put me on the 11:15 am flight instead, so with a couple of hours to kill, we went out to breakfast at Taco Cabana (also recommended by our hosts). We ordered the fajita with eggs and a quesadilla, both of which were really good and totally recommendable. Thumbs up on Taco Cabana, which was a great way to say goodbye to Texas.


There were a few things we didn't get to that I'd like to do, like go to the Snake Farm, go canoeing on Town (Lady Bird) Lake, eat dinner at the Oasis at sunset, hang out in downtown Austin on a weekend night and enjoy the live music, go to Sea World, or check out the Williams Sonoma outlet (curse our self-imposed time limit that kept me from having time to go there).

The biggest surprise of the weekend was NOT when we saw a truck with bumper stickers saying "American by birth, Southern by the grace of God," "Show me your Hooters," (speaking of which, I've never seen so many Hooters restaurants as in Texas) and something about a certain fondness for guns and passed the truck to find a woman driving it. No, it was the fact that I, by the end of the weekend, had decided I could add Austin to my list of very livable cities and might even look for jobs there. Yup, this boy could see himself living in Texas (even if only one part). Go fig. What took me so long to go down there? Gosh, Ty, you could've just told me it was worth visiting... *wink*