Sunday: April 7
San Antonio to Waco,Travel Day
Last night, I actually slept well.
Today is the transit day to Waco. It has been essentially a big fiasco.
We got up at 7, went down at 7:30, and found the same uninspiring breakfast as usual. I did a quick loop around the River Walk. Usually, it is crowded and bustling. At 8:45 on a Sunday morning, it is pretty dead.
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We were one of the last to board the bus, and so we sat in the back. It took longer than expected to get to Waco, apparently due to eclipse traffic. I was rather hungry by the time we got there (around 2:00).
Our luggage was among the last being unloaded, so we ended at the end of a very long line being checked in very slowly by one person at the front desk. To say that it was going to be a while would have been an understatement.
Instead, we brought our bags in to a side room, and then hiked about a mile to Union Hall, which Amy was really keen on, but which is essentially a glorified food court. As it had been lately, the day started out with solid overcast, but halfway along the bus ride the sun came out. When we were walking to lunch (and while we had been waiting in line), it was rather sunny and hot.
I think we each got something at a different vendor. Apparently to make up for the hot walk, we sat at a table right under the A/C duct, so it was freezing.
We walked back and tried to check in. The guy said that our rooms were not yet available. We ended up just sitting in the lobby killing time. It was after 4, and we had no rooms. We were not impressed.
At 4:50, I checked with the guy again, and he said that they were “almost” ready. I started typing up the day’s events, which was apparently the cue for him to come over and give us our keys. We could finally get our luggage and get into our rooms at 5:00.
Tomorrow is going to be a zoo. They are apparently going to try to feed 200 of us in a room that holds about 30. Then we’re going to get on the bus at 8. I’m not sure what facilities are at the equestrian center, but it sounds like not much. There “should” be boxed lunches available for purchase, but we’ll see.
Right now, I have about 30 minutes to kill, and then it will be time to start hiking over to dinner. I think I ate too much of a lunch, so this could be interesting. I’m glad we’re not spending too much time here. I don’t know about Waco as a whole, but in the area around our hotel, there really is almost nothing in walking distance.
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I put some sunscreen on, even though it was later in the day (around 6), and we walked to dinner. It turns out that the place where we were having dinner is only a few blocks from where we had lunch. If we had taken a slightly different route to lunch, we would have walked past it.
It was a nice laid-back place. It was a “farm to table” place, so they tended to use lots of stuff grown locally. They had some interesting descriptions in the menu. Amy’s order included “pickled things”, which were some pickled vegetable.
After dinner, we walked back, and went a few blocks to a frozen custard place. This was basically a higher grade of soft-serve. Amy and I split a cone.
It looks like Amy probably left her sun hat at at the restaurant. All we know is that she doesn’t have it. Unfortuantely, it is too late today to check with them.
It is now almost 9pm. We need to pack up things for tomorrow, so we can be down for breakfast at a bit before 7 when it opens. It won’t be quite as bad as I feared. There won’t be 200 people crammed into that room. Apparently we wouldn’t all fit in this hotel, so we are split among several hotels. There should only be about 70-80 of us trying to grab a quick breakfast.
I’m not at all sure what tomorrow will bring. There is of course the uncertainty of whether we will be able to see the sun at the time of the eclipse. But there is also the question of whether it will be sunny and hot, or rainy. The description said that we would be viewing it at the “equestrian center”. This sounded to me like an actual structure or place. My impression now is that we will just be in some horse field—no buildings. They are bringing in some hay bales for us to sit on. I wonder what the toilet facilities will be like.
Now it is time to review and pack camera stuff, hit the sack early, and hopefully sleep. I hope I don’t get stressed out and have insomnia.