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| The Alamo |
After Austin I headed to San Antonio. My first stop was to visit and have lunch
with my Aunt Martha. I was quite
impressed by her new house and pool! It
was really nice to chat with her! After
lunch, I went to visit my friend Alicia.
It was so lovely to see and visit with her as well. We had a most delicious dinner at Green, a vegetarian
restaurant that had the most wonderful cupcakes ever!!! It was great to get to meet her San Antonio
friends too! They even tried to teach me
to two-step, but I was not too successful.
Apparently I bounce too much to perform this dance. Also, why would you call a dance the two-step
if it has more than two steps?
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| Aunt Martha's fantastic pool! |
The next day I headed back to Aunt Martha’s. She had invited me to go to her Bible
study/lunch group at her church. It was
a very pleasant afternoon and very lovely to meet so many kind women! Afterwards, Aunt Martha drove down to the
Alamo and I wandered around for a while.
It was way smaller than I thought it would be. It also seemed a little strange that this
historic site was in the middle of the city.
We headed back to Aunt Martha’s house and I enjoyed spending several
hours in the pool!
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| Cool building in Gruene, TX |
My other aunt, let’s call her Auntie, called me and asked if
I wanted her to send me the books I had purchased and left at home since I
thought I was only leaving for a week (a month and a half ago). I said I thought that sounded like a great
idea. After packing them up and shipping
them, she let me know that they would be there on Tuesday (it was Wednesday). I let Aunt Martha know and she said, “Oh
good! You’ll stay until Tuesday
then!” So, I was thrilled to be her
unexpected and unannounced houseguest for about a week. She was so kind and generous to share her
home (I call it the spa though. . . it’s a most relaxing and luxurious home!)
and time with me over the next several days!
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| The Texas White House on the LBJ ranch |
I really enjoyed getting to meet and play with Aunt Martha’s
adopted nephews James and Joshua (as well as meeting their parents Michelle and
Pete)! I especially enjoyed seeing James
play with his helium balloons that Aunt Martha filled with her very own
official helium tank! He was so cute
running around with them. He even cried
out, “this is very serious!” at one point.
So cute! I also had a ball
playing with them in the pool! I feel
like the feeling might have been mutual since by the end of my time in San
Antonio James was calling me Sister Sarah and Joshua told me he was going to
come with me on my trip!
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| Porch swing in the middle of nowhere on the LBJ ranch |
Aunt Martha and I had a few adventures in hill country. She was kind enough to be my tour guide and
take me to and show me around various German settlements in the hills outside
of San Antonio. It was very beautiful
scenery and had a decidedly western feel about it! She also took me to LBJ’s ranch. It was fun to get to see a ranch for
myself! It was huge! There were several very hot and tired cows
and evidence of a stream, but the actual stream had dried up. I also got to see the “Texas White
House”. My favorite part of the ranch
though, was a porch swing that was set up in the middle of a field all by
itself!
Aunt Martha was also kind enough to indulge my curiosity
about Morgan’s Wonderland. I read about
Morgan’s Wonderland in an adaptive newspaper I used in my classroom at
PACTT. It’s an amusement park that is
totally accessible for people with a wide range of disabilities. We went and had a most enjoyable
afternoon! They did a wonderful job
making it totally inclusive! I had to
really look to distinguish which areas were wheelchair accessible and which
weren’t! We started our afternoon with
an “off road” ride in a jeep. It was a
good chance to get to look around the park.
Then, I proceeded to check out every corner of the playground
section! I had a blast as a typically
developing (I know some people may question just how typical I am. . .)
twenty-seven year old, so I can only imagine how much fun it would be for a
child who isn’t able to fully participate in most playgrounds! My favorite part of the playground was the
flat roller slide. It was a flat
table-like situation with rollers (like on roller slides) and there were bars
above the table. You lie down on the
rollers then pull yourself through by using the bars until you come shooting
out the other end! Then we went to the
sensory area. That had a ton of xylophone,
chime, and drum type situations of various sizes set up. Next we walked past the swings. There was a wide range of various levels of
adaptive swings. There were even ones
that you rolled your wheelchair right on to and then you and your chair got to
swing. We were marveling at this when
the lady asked Aunt Martha if she wanted to try it. Since she’s up for anything, she said she
did. As a result, she got to swing for
the first time in many years! Next there
was another playground area with a pirate theme by the water. There was a fishing area out on the
pier. On one end of the pier, there were
large water cannon gadgets that you could shoot off and aim for the floating,
rotating, wind chime like contraptions in the water. On the other end of the pier, you could steer
remote control pirate ships. There were
a bunch of them, so you could crash into each other if you wanted! Then we walked around the pond and through
the various rest areas that each had their own country as a theme. As we finished our tour we got to the best
part! The interactive water table! There were various types of fountains in each
section of the table. The best part was
you got to build or take them apart and decide how you wanted to manipulate the
water! It was so fun!!! In addition to all this really fun stuff, the
entire place was incredibly clean and the volunteers were all very pleasant. I must say though, the most enjoyable part
was getting to see the kids play their hearts out!
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| Aunt Martha and a volunteer in the swing area |
I had the pleasure of getting to hang out with Alicia and
her friends again, which lovely! It was
really nice to have some built in friends for a bit! Alicia and I had time to have a low key night
of Mexican food and a movie too. I must
say it was quite wonderful to have moments during my week in San Antonio to sit
down and watch a movie or T.V. or just chat and just be still. It was like a mini vacation from my
vacation!
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| Sensory area at Morgan's Wonderland |
On Sunday, I had a realization of just how unstable my life
is at the moment. I went to church with Michelle, Pete, and the boys. At this point, I felt as if were (well Michelle
and the boys anyway) all old friends by now since I had met them more than
once. I also felt like I had a pretty
stable and established living situation since I had been sleeping inside in a
bed for many nights at this point. As
Pete and Michelle were introducing me to their friends, I could tell by their
reactions, that no, actually my being there was kind of random. And now that I reflect on it, yes, it kind of
was. After all, I am a random relative of a friend of their family that had they
had met two days ago. It’s strange how
quickly I was able to adjust to living out my car in various parts of the
country like it is totally normal!
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| Interactive water table at Morgan's Wonderland |
I enjoyed my time in San Antonio immensely! It was wonderful to get to know Aunt Martha
better! She was such a kind and generous
hostess to an unexpected houseguest who stayed for a week! She is one of the most flexible people I have
ever met! It was so great to both be on
the receiving end of that flexibility as well as see it in action! Nothing phases her and she consistently puts
the people that are important to her first even if that messes up her plans
(and she’s so effortless about it that you would never know that you disrupted
her life at all!)!
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| Funny sculpture in Gruene, TX |
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