Alamo, Astros, & Arlington

After a long and unrelenting day of driving on Tuesday, the intrepid Marciniaks were ready for a bit more entertainment on Wednesday. When we hit San Antonio, we visited a “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives” restaurant called the Tip Top Café, where we filled up on good old-fashioned comfort food (onion rings, country fried steak, chicken & dumplings, buttermilk pie). The portions were ginormous, and the food was as good as advertised. Mmm.


From there, we headed to the Alamo. I was insistent that this would be a “quick stop” because I did not want to get sunburnt and didn’t want to put on a ton of sunscreen. These are the things you have to consider when you are as pale as bedsheets. (I got somewhat sunburned THROUGH THE CAR WINDOW on Tuesday, so I was taking no chances.) We were pleased to discover that the Alamo’s main attraction, the “shrine,” is indoor and air-conditioned, so we were able to linger a bit.


After the Alamo, it was off to Houston. After our last hour of driving was marred by horrendous traffic, we made it to our hotel, which was… well, let’s just say I decided not to shower there and leave it at that.

Minute Maid Park was quite pleasant. There were several similarities to our experience at Chase Field: the roof was on, the home team won, and we also saw a couple get engaged during the kiss-cam segment (this is apparently the thing to do, although I don’t understand how the guy can know the girl won’t decide to go get a snack or visit the bathroom at the break… this would worry me if I was proposing…).


The park itself is very nice, nicer than Chase Field. Although he felt that this stadium was “almost trying too hard” by adding TOO many quirks, Dustin awarded it an “A-.” We had two seats in our very own little row, the corner, front row overlooking right field. But of course, the big news is that we had the all-you-can-eat seats, aka “seats of glory and gluttony.” Surprisingly, we just had to turn in our voucher for a nondescript blue wristband, and then we got to walk up to the counter and take whatever we wanted. I had my fair share of hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts, chips and jalapenos (I don’t go in for day-glo orange cheese sauce, thank you), and lemonade. The seats were fun, the food was plentiful, and again we saw a good game with lots of action (final score = Astros: 6, Giants: 3) – another success.



We have now made it to Arlington, Texas (just outside of Dallas if your Texas geography is as fuzzy as mine was). We’re staying within walking distance of tonight’s Rangers game as well as Six Flags Over Texas, which I suspect Dustin would have liked to visit… and now, we’re ready for our third game.