Our Mini-Cation to San Antonio: Day 2!

Like I said in my previous post about our trip to San Antonio, day two started with a bit of a hitch. Rain had been on the forecast for the trip, but so far we had been lucky and had beautiful blue skies! Unfortunately, when skies turned dark the first night, they also turned stormy, and we had hail that night, and some major rain and thunderstorms when we woke up. AHH! Seeing as how we had been planning to meet up with some local friends at the San Antonio Zoo, we were sad to see the weather change! After revising our plans to include a museum in place of the zoo, we set out to find breakfast, where Ava must have eaten her weight in breakfast food!

By some miracle, the weather turned from gray to blue during our breakfast outing, and we were able to go to the zoo after all (though by ourselves, since our friends had already made other plans!). First, though, we had eyed the Tower of the Americas during breakfast, and we decided to celebrate the gorgeous weather turnaround by heading up to it!

This was probably one of the low points of our trip. We paid $8 for parking since there is ZERO street parking in San Antonio (hey, city planners! fix this ASAP!), only to not be told that it didn't open for nearly an hour after we arrived! I guess it's somewhat my fault for not checking, but why wouldn't it be open at 9am on a weekday, especially when it's all about the view?!?!? The good thing is that while we were there, we managed to see a few fun things and take some pictures, and we really look forward to going back to go up int he tower the next trip!

Here's what we did do while on the Tower grounds:

Ava was just happy to ride this horse. Thankfully, this didn't give me sticker shock the way parking did.

After we left the Tower of the Americas, we headed over to Brackenridge Park to the San Antonio Zoo! We've been here multiple times, and it never fails to be awesome. Austin has a ridiculously laughable zoo, and this one puts ours to shame! But first, before we went in, we had to ride the train around the park for the first time. It had turned into a gorgeous day for a train ride at the park, but apparently we were the only ones who though so:

 Oh well, private tour to ourselves! Here's what we saw:

Pardon the selfie Ava took of the two of us:

After that, we headed into the zoo!

Up until this point, we had a great time. The zoo was practically empty (see above), and animals like bears that are notorious for hiding during the heat were out and about, which made for a treat for us! But, then, things turned :( As we walked into the next part of the Africa section, it turned into an episode of When Animals Attack, with this bird literally attacking Ava! 

Lest you think I'm a terrible mother for standing by with a camera when she was being attacked, know that at this point, the bird seemed just very interested in Ava, and we were commemorating how she made a friend at the zoo. WRONG. The second I snapped this, the bird swooped onto her head, repeatedly trying to peck at her and scratch at her. I batted him away while she huddled on the ground screaming, covering her with my body, and was able to pick her up and run with her. There was a set of double doors ahead that I was trying to get to, but the bird swooped down and went for her a second and third time. Thankfully, she managed to make it out unharmed, but super traumatized. She wanted to leave the zoo immediately, but I was able to convince her to stay. Unfortunately for me, it required me to carry her through the zoo for the remainder - a laughable feat for a pregnant woman overdressed for the sudden heat. 

Unfortunately it was at this point that our second - and final - mishap happened. Ava went running to look at something, and totally ate it on the sidewalk, scraping both her knees and palms and was bleeding and hysterical. Needless to say, it was time to go!

Before we left the city, we had one more adventure, but I'll tell you about that in another post tomorrow, when I haven't already photo bombed you to death! :)