waco | Cupcakes and Commentary

If you have two days in San Antonio…part 2

Knowing how hot San Antonio is in July, I started looking for some indoor options for our second day. We did one indoor and one outdoor activity and in retrospect we should have swapped the times, but the kids did great (just kidding, two of them complained a lot, one complained only slightly, one did not complain, and one did great…except for trying to run off a few times. I’ll let you figure out who’s who. That’s real life, friends). Anyway, our indoor activity was the Natural Bridge Caverns. There are actually two different tours you can take here (both 75 minutes each). We opted for the Discovery Tour where they do not turn out all the lights. We had about thirty minutes before the tour started, so we let the kids do the maze that they have.

Once we got started on the tour I realized I should’ve brought water, blah. We mooched off my sister’s family to keep J from complaining the whole time. This would have been a great place to have their camelback water backpacks. The tour is not super strenuous, but it is a bit of a hike to get out once you get in there. The kids liked the jellyfish formations, the bat nest markings, and the different cave formations the look like pancakes and eggs.

Afterward we grabbed some lunch at the snack shop:

And then headed to the zoo! If you go to the San Antonio Zoo after 1 or 2 p.m. they discount the tickets, so that was a nice bonus. Now, I know what you may be saying. If you’ve seen one zoo, haven’t you really seen it all? And yes, most zoos have similar animals there. However, depending on the zoo you’ll get a different experience seeing the animals and learn different things, which is why the kids love going. For example, we saw hippos underwater up close:

And J got to be face to face with a wild dog. You could pretty much consider his trip made by that point. He was so excited!

He really wanted to get in there with the wild dogs, especially when one came right up to the glass:

And they had an interactive dinosaur exhibit when we went:

Afterwards we headed back to the hotel and took showers because it was approximately one million degrees when we left the zoo. We then headed out to an Italian restaurant on the Riverwalk.

The boys got their full helpings of spaghetti, so they were quite excited.

And then the next morning we woke up super early and headed for home!

A few other restaurants and places to check out if you’re in San Antonio…

Children’s Museum

Lulu’s bakery and cafe

Mi Tierra Cafe

Gristmill river restaurant and bar

Texas Pride BBQ

The Magnolia Pancake Hauss

Hot Joy restaurant

And that’s it! Our Texas road trip (after a fifteen hour drive back) was done!

To see the other parts of our road trip, check out Waco, Austin, and San Antonio Part I.

If you have a day in Waco…

On the Fourth of July, while everyone else (literally everyone…no one was on the road!) was celebrating the holiday, we headed out on a week long road trip to and through Texas. My youngest cousin was getting married, so my sister and I planned a family trip that sandwiched the trip to Austin for the wedding in between Waco and San Antonio. We definitely didn’t have time to do and see everything, but we had a blast, and we fit in quite a bit for eight days with driving time, five kids, and a wedding included. I’m starting in Waco as it was stop number one. We had one full day to spend in Waco before we had to head down to Austin, so here is what we did!

We arrived in Waco at lunch time and made a beeline for In and Out Burger, where J declared he no longer eats burgers (tip to note: they have a secret menu with grilled cheese that you can order). This is the kid who ate burgers up until Thursday, July 5th…

Then we headed over to the Dr. Pepper museum (a great reprieve from the July heat), and spent a good hour and a half (you can definitely tour it in less) letting the kids wander, and enjoying Dr. Pepper floats.

The sweet kiddo next to J is one of my cousin’s daughters. Blonde hair does actually run in our family!

A now has a thorough knowledge of how Dr. Pepper is made, ask him anything! After the Dr. Pepper museum we headed over to Magnolia Market and Silos (as you might expect).

However, as you might not know my maternal great grandparents are from Waco. And Silos Baking Company? My Great Grandfather helped build the original building.

We used to go to Waco almost every summer, but I haven’t been in almost twenty years. It has changed quite a bit since our last visit! At Magnolia Market and Silos we wandered the grounds, the kids got slushies, and we bought a few souvenirs.

Then we headed to see the Baylor Bear. We wandered just a bit of Baylor’s campus (one of my cousins played baseball there), and J declared he definitely wants to play baseball there when he grows up.

He picked out a Baylor Bear souvenir and we headed down the street for dinner. We ate at Coach’s Smoke and the food was great and the staff was super helpful and kind.

Our landing spot for the night was the Homewood Suites. It’s not as close to downtown as other hotels, but it’s perfect if you’re headed out the next day to Austin, which we were!

Other notable spots to check out if you have more than a day are:

The Wooly Mammoth Park

The Texas Rangers Museum

Other fun food places to try would be:

Torchy’s Tacos

Twisted Root Beer Company

Magnolia Table

Next we headed to outside Austin for a wedding! Stay tuned…