– San Antonio, Texas to Corpus Christi, Texas –

It was a relatively quiet day today. We woke up at 7am and went down to the river in San Antonio for a run. There’s trail for miles along the river through the city, and it was very popular on such a pleasant Saturday. We didn’t see many other dogs out running (only 3 or 4), but we saw at least 60 other people out jogging, walking, or biking in the roughly 3-mile stretch that we went down and back. The trail continues for quite a ways, like I said, so I can only imagine how many people were using the rest of it.

We didn’t make it out of our hotel until 10am, which was a little later than we’d intended since we played with our phones in bed for 30 minutes before we could be bothered to get dressed to go run. After we left our hotel, we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts on the way out of town. I’m not sure why, but we had frosted strawberry donuts. I really think it was the draw of the tiny heart sprinkles they had for Valentine’s Day. I’m a sucker for cute things. Anyway, strawberry flavoring is a mistake on a donut. We should’ve gone vanilla or chocolate. They weren’t as cute, though, so they didn’t catch my eye. Regardless, donuts for breakfast are a good start to the morning, even if the frosting is a little disappointing.

This morning, we planned to drive to Eagle Pass. Mark chose a route that took us over to Uvalde, then down to La Pryor and over to Eagle Pass. Unfortunately, when we got to Uvalde, we discovered that Highway 83 was closed in the area for construction. We followed the signs for a detour, which took us instead over to Batesville and then across on 57. Looking at the map now, we see than unless 481 was also somehow closed, we made a mistake. We should’ve taken 481. Never trust the detour signs, I guess. If only I’d really looked at my Google Maps app, we’d probably have done fine. It added about an hour to our drive overall, I think, and we still ran into some construction.

La Pryor has a brand new Valero gas station. I wouldn’t have known it was new, obviously, except that today was the grand opening. I don’t think I have ever been to the grand opening of a gas station. As we were driving up to it to make a pitstop, I commented that it looked really new. It was definitely the nicest gas station in town, which is why we picked it. As we were parking, we saw the “Grand Opening 1/30!” signs. I thought it was hilarious. Really new, indeed.

It was a little weird, actually. There was a lady inside that was trying to give away Bud Light gear and coupons, and someone else outside was selling local raffle tickets. There was a guy standing at the back by another type of beer, but I didn’t run into him, so I couldn’t tell you what. I had no idea that they did that when gas stations opened.

The gas station had three resident dogs that stood on the sidewalk out front and made a nuisance of themselves. They were small and all wearing collars, so I have to assume that they belonged to someone that was nearby. Regardless, one in particular kept running out under the cars, and I was terrified for him. I think I had a mini panic attack watching for all of the small dogs while Mark tried to leave the parking lot. Someone needs to take better care of their babies.

Eagle Pass is an interesting town, being on the border as it is. The city has way more restaurants and stores than a city of its size should be able to support, because of course people cross the border to shop and eat and entertain themselves. Our only real goal was the courthouse, so we made our way downtown and took some photos of the courthouse and the orange tree out behind it. Mark hadn’t ever seen an orange tree in person, and the fruit was pretty ripe looking, but it was not ready yet when we peeled one of the oranges. Mark seemed pretty disappointed. He was looking forward to a fresh-from-the-tree orange experience. It still smelled fantastic, even if you wouldn’t want to eat it just yet.

The drive from Eagle Pass to Corpus Christi takes a little over 3 hours, so we went ahead and left town before we lost any more daylight. We finished Queen of Sorcery on the road, and switched on to Magician’s Gambit. I expect that we will finish this one on the drive home on Monday. We will see.

We stopped at a gas station for a chips and cashews snack around 3, which I guess you’d call a light “lunch.” It was probably that or Subway again. By 6, we were in Corpus Christi. After unloading our things at our standard La Quinta here, we grabbed some Freebirds World Burrito for dinner. We have a gift card from Christmas, and we really like that place, anyway. It isn’t exactly something special, which we typically like to do when we’re away from home, but we were hungry and it was quick and delicious. After, we stopped at Target to pick up a few things for our lunch tomorrow.

Tomorrow should be beautiful, and we’re planning to spend most of the day playing around on the beach. We’ll probably get up around 7am again to go run by the ocean, then we will grab some breakfast and drive on to one of our beaches. It’s looking like it will be a perfect day for it: 77°F and sunny.

 – Trip Total : 757 miles –