Cathedral of San Agustin in Laredo, Texas
So after the big game and my team lost I, or we… no I was in desperate need of a vacation. After giving up an entire year of games (My seasonal passes) to get into the big game, my Colts let me down. We however did get those souvenirs for cheap, since they lost all the items went down in price at the tent and trailer shops. But my wife suggested we go far away and to get my mind off of the game I was kind of exited to make a quick getaway. Normally I would wait a good week before going on another vacation/trip but it seemed like a good idea.We decided to head off the Laredo in Texas; my wife was desperate to get some photos of the Cathedral of San Agustin. We were reading online about how this huge structure is one of the oldest cathedrals in America and were kinda anxious to go see it. However we weren’t going to plan a trip around it, we were going to just visit at some point when we were in the area. However after the game I just wanted to get out of the state, so off we headed to the Texas border and the city of Laredo.
We rented a car from National, we got a Saturn Vue, and man was that a smooth ride. The engine doesn’t give you a loud rev, or create turbulence when you hit high speeds on the highway, it just keeps this soft steady purr, and it was fantastic. My wife slept the entire ride there; it really was just that smooth.
Now the city of Laredo is located just along the Mexican boarder, the city is actually on both sides and is only connected by a few bridges. These bridges are really closely monitored, and we didn’t plan to cross over to the other side, however I would assume you need visas and other legal documents.
Anyhow we arrived at night, so we got a hotel and the next day we were at the Cathedral. This thing is massive, it apparently ministers to over 222,250 Catholics in the area. We paid for a guided tour through the large church and we got some fantastic pictures. If you ever get a chance to look at this place than I suggest stopping, it was fun and we defiantly got to see the whole thing. I mean they took us through a thorough tour, every nook and crack of this large church we saw. The architecture is Gothic Revival and wow, I’m telling you this is one structure you cant miss (Unless your team is playing in the Super Bowl).
The restaurants in Laredo Texas are great to, we intend to stay here for another few days, but we have the car for a week. Planning our next move and getting ready to enjoy some of the other attractions around town. If you get a chance go to Laredo, it really is fun.
posted by Snow Bird @ 12:37 PM
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Now as every single person in America knows the big game day is coming up and my team is going to win. It’s just a fact; the Colts are the best team to grace the earth, who could possibly stand in their way? Well I had to sacrifice my season tickets to buy Super Bowl tickets, on account that my wife would have it no other way. It was a minor set back for my fan ego, but now that this momentous occasion is coming I am quickly beginning to enjoy my decision.
Along with my good buddies Brock and Cesar, we decided we wanted to do something completely new with our lives and wanted to take up the wonderful sport of kite boarding. Its almost like every time I’ve ever been to a beach I’ve always seen the bright colorful kites with people flying right behind them, but I’ve never been able to actually get down to the nitty-gritty and try kite boarding, in fact the closest thing I’ve done to kiteboarding is controlling a sailboat! And that’s not close at all if you know anything about the two sports. Usually when we try something new we look to find an instructor but we were not able to find and instructor that was able to work with the random hours that we wanted to kite board! Especially since the courses were anywhere from 9 to 12 hours! There was no way we would be able to find time to do that and still have fun in the same day, the sun is only up for a portion of the day! And I don’t know about Brock and Cesar but after my life threatening experience while skinny dipping in the dark, the last thing I want to do is be caught in the water at night. From local kiteboarders we found out a great place to board, it was off the coast of West Palm Beach, Luckily West Palm Beach isn’t too far from us, its actually only about 3 hours away! The only problem is that with 3 very large kite boards and all of our supplies it wasn’t too easy to fit everything inside of my 2-seater, or Cesar’s sedan. And since Brock doesn’t want to ever put miles on her truck we decided that it would be a lot easier to just rent something a lot bigger and drive it down since we were only going for the day. After renting some kiteboarding gear from a local shop we made our way down to the Hertz at the Orlando International Airport, We wanted to rent the biggest baddest pick up truck they had 
but we realized that a Ford Explorer would get the job done since it came with roof racks and all. We drove the Explorer back to my house where we strapped up all of our kiteboarding gear and we hit the road. We made one stop on the way there at Okeechobee so we could get a little something to eat, we each went with a “$5 Footlong” from Subway and got back to hit the road. We got to Vero Beach in almost no time! Once we got there we went directly to the beach we were already dressed for it so we walked right up with our kite boards. Off in the distance we could see what seemed to be a professional kiteboarder just doing his thing but we decided we didn’t want to go that far because we were just amateurs and didn’t want to embarrass ourselves, the first hour was nothing but pure failure, Cesar was the first one to actually get the right idea, he said he was just copying the guy we saw off in the distance, so when I looked for him I couldn’t find him. All of a sudden a lifeguard in a boat zoomed right by us, we automatically knew something was wrong. It was almost just like the movie jaws, all of us afraid of getting eaten by these 
massive creatures of the sea we quickly rushed out and darted for the shore. We met up with some officials on shore and they told us that a kiteboarder was found in the ocean severely bleeding with a group of sharks surrounding him. The scary part is that the beach was still left open! According to Shark Professionals there is only about 4 fatal shark attacks a year it is very rare for this to happen, 4 seems like a pretty risky number for me so I decided to sit the kiteboarding out for the rest of the day, Cesar did the same. Brock’s always the crazy one and he was still in the water kiteboarding like there was no tomorrow as Cesar and I watched him hoping he wasn’t next on a shark’s hit list. After Brock was finished we went over to a local restaurant and had a light meal where we relaxed. Overall it was a nice day, besides the fact someone was attacked by a shark of course.
Usually when I see a rodent I try to get rid of it as fast as possible, today was the complete opposite. It was almost like the tables were turned with the rodent and I and it actually wasn’t that bad! Cesar and I drove all the way to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to go see the famous groundhog. Everyone though we were crazy to drive that far just to see what they called an obese squirrel but we though it was a once in a lifetime experience to see the groundhog we’ve known about since we were in grade school. For those of you who don’t know about Groundhog Day, its really not that hard of a concept to grasp. Basically a popular groundhog by the name of Punxsutawney Phil comes out of his hole on the morning of Groundhog Day and if he sees his shadow then winter will continue, however if the groundhog does not see its shadow, Spring will come sooner. Cesar and I did not only go to groundhog day to watch the groundhog come out of the hole, there was a collection of festivals and parades that also honored this traditional day as well. Our trip started off pretty easily actually, we went directly to the Enterprise Rent A Car in the Orlando International Airport and easily rented a car, I’ve always rented cars from there but I’ve just come to notice that how well they treat every individual customer, since it was just Cesar and I traveling for a day, we decided that we needed a car that was pretty small, and good for the snow. Ever since Cesar was part of an unbelievable snowmobile accident he hasn’t been able to 
get in a car without good traction for snow but that’s okay we ended up going with the Ford Escape, which wasn’t the smallest car but it probably was the best for driving on snow, and on top of that it was also as fuel efficient as any car I’ve ever been in. So we made our way up North, our first stop was the good old Jacksonville, I’ve never been able to actually drive past Jacksonville, even though its been the same since the first time I’ve stopped there I always have some excuse to stop for a little, sometimes I’m hungry, other times I’m low on gas, or sometimes I’m just tired of sitting. Either way I end up getting out at Jacksonville. We went right on up to Georgia and ended up in Savanna in no time, it was almost like we zoomed right through that state. We entered South Carolina and stopped at a town we’ve both never been to called, Rock Hill. We didn’t stay very long, just enough to have a snack at a local McDonalds and head back out on our journey. The states I’ve always loved driving through was the Virginias because for some reason the whole highway setting is a lot easier to drive on, plus its like everyone there knows how to drive rather than a select few normal drivers and a million old people who seem to think the speed limit is 25. Before we knew it we were in Pennsylvania, we could just tell that it was freezing outside and we didn’t want to come out of the car even though we knew we had to get out soon. Once we arrived at our destination, we dreaded the fact that we had to get out, after watching the parades and meeting new people and learning about the groundhogs its now time to watch this creature come out of its hole!
Compared to our other entire massive road trips, going to Tampa wouldn’t even be classified as a road trip. But since we planned it months ahead and rented a car for the event, we decided that we could fit it in with the rest. I went with my buddies Brock and Cesar and surprisingly enough none of us have ever been to the Gasparilla Parade before! It all started when just a few months ago I heard about it from a co-worker, after I did some research on this event I decided it was a great idea to go, and who better to bring than my best friends Brock and Cesar. Since Tampa was only about an hour and a half away, we didn’t have to take any time off work t enjoy this one of a kind festival. We left early in the morning so we could get there in enough time to get a parking spot and get to roam the city before the event started. Since all of us drive small cars, we decided it would be a lot more comfortable to just rent a sedan for the day and ride to Tampa in that. We went to the Dollar Rent a Car kiosk in the airport at Orlando and quickly rented a Chrysler 300. Boy was that car amazing, from the outside it looked like your everyday sedan but on the inside it felt like a SUV. I wanted to take the privilege of driving but since Cesar is what you would call a “backseat driver” and it gets really frustration at times I just figured I’d pass the task on to Brock. On the way there we thought it would be an even better idea to reserve a room at a motel seeing as we did not want to be stuck in immense traffic on the way home let alone drive home without rest on such a long day. Time really flied when we went to Tampa, that hour and a half really only felt like 10 minutes! Once we got there it was jam packed, we thought we’d be able to find a parking spot but we were so wrong, it was like people were already there just waiting for a parade to happen. It was news to us that the parade went on during the 
day as well, for some reason we thought it was only a night thing. Without hesitation we went directly to a motel to reserve a room, there was no way we were going to try and drive home a long with thousands of other people. The first motel we went to was full, as was the second, the third motel had a few rooms left so we decided that was where we wanted to stay, but of course it’s not like we had any other options! We didn’t really pack anything which was great because we didn’t really have to worry about anything at all, and the best part of the motel deal was that we got a reserved parking, so that was one thing we didn’t have to worry about at all. We could have driven around looking for someplace to eat but that would have taken forever seeing as the roads were packed with cars and people all together. We went to a nice restaurant near Bayshore Boulevard called Mad Dogs and Englishmen, what really brought us to that restaurant was the name. We wended up having some of the best food we’ve ever had, I ate the Lobster Ravioli and every bite was amazing. Once we got done with the food it was almost like the parade had already started, we saw tons of pirates and people dressed up in colorful costumes dancing around to loud thumping music, it was great. Day quickly turned to night and it looked like the parade had just got more intense, we were all having a great time with all of 
the people around us for hours on end, when it was time to leave and head back into the hotel we could barely even walk, our feet and legs were so sore, so next time we know that we need to reserve some bleacher seating, because standing up and jumping around while watching 90 floats, 14 marching bands, and over 50 pirate crews can be tiring after a while, considering that you’re doing it all day without sleep or eating. Overall this trip was a success and we can’t wait for next year to do the same! I’m actually about to see if I can get my reserved bleacher seating in advance before I forget!
It’s a great thing we decided to go to Aspen Colorado to see Lindsey Jacobellis and Nate Holland playing in the X Games. Many people don’t follow snowboarding closely and I wouldn’t blame them, seeing as we’re in Florida and all and no one has ever really seen snow, I doubt that anyone would be the very least bit interested in snow boarding. But anyway Cesar and I are having a great time up here watching all these adrenaline pumping sports. One thing that is truly amazing about this place is that the course is over 3,500 ft long. As if that number isn’t scary enough once you factor in all of the twists and turns on this bad boy you get to meet fear face to face. Speaking of face to face, before we came in to the hotel our faces seem like they were about to freeze off! Its simply amazing how in Florida its about 70 degrees and with the wind chills its going below 0 up here! The Trek to get to this one of a kind experience was just that, one of a kind. We’ve been to Colorado plenty of times before but I’ve never got the chance to watch anyone snowboard or ski. Usually when I come to Colorado I’m visiting some of my girlfriends family or just rushing through so we can get to the next state, either way I never really get to take a good look at the beautiful state which seems to have eternal rolling hills covered with a thick soft 
blanket of now with dark nearly emerald green trees emerging from different points of the scenic land. Unfortunately I did not get to drive here this time but its okay, im not a huge fan of my vehicles heating anyway, sometimes it just feels like it makes me sick! Our flight over here took a pretty long time I cant remember the exact hours because I fell asleep but I also think the fact that we left so early in the morning made it seem worse than it really was. When we got to the airport we were in a rush, not because we had somewhere to go but because we were cold-actually cold is an understatement it was FREEZING! And of course whenever you’re in a rush there’s always something that just has to slow you down. In this case it was Cesar’s suitcase! It didn’t make it to the baggage claim so we had to fill out a ton of paperwork so he could get some sort of reimbursement for his loss. Luckily there was a nice Enterprise car rental kiosk right next door to the customer service department. We went directly to the hotel to change, or at least I went to change, Cesar lost all of his clothes and shoes and for some reason decided it would be a great idea to travel in a T-shirt to Colorado in the winter! So we ended up spending more time going to purchase a big jacket for Cesar, even though we were late to the X-Games we still got to see our American athletes win so we were still happy. And tonight, we shall celebrate!