The same, but different -- SA in July

Wednesday, July 20th, 2016

Today, we packed up and headed to San Antonio for the Texas Bandmasters Association Convention. nearly every year for the past 25 years, Tony heads down to the San Antonio Convention Center in mid/late July to learn from great seminars, see great concerts, hopefully a DCI performance, and view what vendors have for sale in the world of music education. Sometimes I've gone, sometimes I haven't, and a few years, we have taken the trailer down to stay at the San Antonio KOA. This year, we took the our (Mammoth II), the Big Country.

We didn't take a lot of pics this year. It's the same, but different. We left about 1:30PM, arrived at about 6:30PM, and got set up as quick as possible as the temps was close to 100 and very humid!

Our site was right next to a Bighorn, and they were sitting outside. So, close to the end of our chores, Tony stopped and visited with them. Surprisingly, they are from Dumas, TX, which is in our Heartland Owners Club Chapter! He gave them our card and recommended they join us for the upcoming West Texas Chapter Rally. We had a nice chat, before our pizza arrived! (this park has an on-site Hunt Brother's Pizza, and they will deliver to your RV site!)

Luckily, our site had a large tree between us and the afternoon sun, so we managed to get the rig cooled down fairly quickly. I had some work to do, so I went to it. Tony headed to bed about 10PM.

Thursday, July 21st, 2016

Today, we got up and got going fairly early, since Tony had to head to the convention center to register and start attending seminars. He caught the bus right outside the park, and only paid $1.30 each way. A lot cheaper than paying for parking downtown!

I worked all day, and the kitties really enjoyed the new sights and sounds out of the windows. Grackles would come around, walking around the sites looking for food. Squirrels ran all about. And, because we were close to the very back of the site to allow room for the truck in front, we were very close to folks out walking dogs, kids riding peddle-bikes, and more.

After his seminars were done about 5:30PM, Tony took the bus he thought would bring him back to the park, but turns out it was the wrong bus #24. He was finally transferred to the right bus, and when he FINALLY got home from convention and hour later than planned, we ate, collapsed and watched tv for a bit, then I went back to working and he went to bed.

Friday, July 22nd, 2016

Today was the same but different, I worked and Tony conventioned. We had planned to get together with his folks and sister that were also coming to town to watch the Drum Corps Southwest  Championships with us on Saturday. However, it was getting pretty late, and we were all tired and hungry from the day -- we decided to not get together after all. We ordered another pizza from Hunt Brothers, but we piddled around the KOA store while waiting for the pizza. They have a lot of stuff if you forget something!

We ate, watched a little tv, then I worked on preparing the artwork for the Band T-shirts. Tony had asked me to scope out possible vendors for those and colorguard related items, at the convention center, so I plan to go with him tomorrow.

Saturday, July 23rd, 2016

Today we got up early and got going to catch the bus. Tony had a seminar at 9AM, which meant we had to catch an 8AM bus -- which meant be out at the stop at 7:50AM. Which meant eek! I had to get up way too early for someone who has been working 'til midnight almost every night the past week.

Well, we made the bus and Tony made his seminar, and I went around and talked to vendors about shirts. We met back up for lunch, and ate at the Marriott's lunch buffet. It was very good! 

After lunch Tony had more seminars, while I looked into vendors for colorguard uniforms and flags, and a few more T-shirt folks. I found a t-shirt vendor I think will work out well!

About 3:45PM, we headed (with 3 bags of heavy stuff from the convention) over to the Rivercenter Mall to meet Tony's family to go to the Drum Corps Performance. Unfortunately in the early morning rush, I forgot our tickets! So we drove back over to the KOA and picked them up, along with our seat cushions and bottled water. 

Tony drove us all over to the Alamodome, and we luckily found a fenced parking area about a block from the Alamodome property. "Whoo hoo!" we thought, not too far to walk! Well, we were about in the center of the field, and the entrance has typically been at the north endzone. So walked over to there. Due to construction, the north endzone was closed, so we had to walk all the way around to the south endzone! Then, we had to walk inside to the north side of the pressbox, and up stairs to level 200, to our seats. We were all pretty hot and tired once we got seated. Luckily, we got there just in time to see The Colts, Tony's former Corps, perform. We enjoyed their show.

We saw lots of amazing performances at the DCI Southwest Championship this year, the athleticism and musicality of the shows are increasingly more difficult and awe-inspiring to watch. Unfortunately, more and more of the music is custom written and not recognizable, so you don't go away with anything "sticking" in your head. Honestly, they all kinda blended together this year for me. The Bluecoats won the night, and they did have an amazing show. They did things we've never seen on a marching field --  they used giant "skateboard style" 15ft tall ramps! Running up them, hanging on them, sliding down them, all while playing, as well as moving the ramps around the field for various visual effects.

We enjoyed the night and didn't have too far to go to get back to the car, now knowing the faster way to get there. Tony drove us back to the KOA, and they dropped us off. We head back home tomorrow.

Sunday, July 24th, 2016

This morning we were slower to get up, but we wanted to get on the road so we would not be getting home so late. We pulled out about 11AM. The trip was nice and easy up 281 to 183. We got home about 4:30PM, and decided to try pulling up in our site to be under the trees a little more for shade. upon entering the trailer, it was 96*! It took us a bit to get set up because we had to set up longer dump hose, water hose and cable lines, and move our rug out of the way a bit. Since it was still quite toasty inside and the cats were still in the truck (running with AC), we decided to run to town and get the mail, and pick up dinner. This would give the ACs time to cool the rig some more. Luckily, we had less humidity! Ours was only 25%, while it was 30% in SA, 34% in DFW!

All in all a good trip. We'll be staying put for a bit, now.