First long drive,,,,

After becoming An Officially Licensed Driver, I finally decided to go on a much waited long drive in my car to explore The Lone Star State,  Texas (And, yes I bought a car in March and got a driving license on May 23rd, 2012 :)). 

Apart from driving and freedom, the other most important thing i have been enjoying the maximum in the car is music. After coming out of the college hostel in 2005, the only place where I am really enjoying the LOUD LOUD LOUD music is in the car while driving alone,,,its really such an awesome fun listening to all the songs we like in the way we like :),,,and luckily the car i bought has got some nice speakers. My apartment being very near to the office, so many times I just drive further and come back just to continue and finish listening to those songs :)

Then, felt to just go alone on this drive as I was not interested in planning this trip much and wanted to just go on the flow :) 

Destination point decided as "San Antonio" as it was around 200 miles: not too long and not too short :).

Started from Houston, TX on Saturday(May 26th) morning 7:00 AM. All the roads were empty and the Houston I saw with those early sun rays was much better. Getting on to the I-10 was easier due to the recent repeated trips to Bollywood 6 theatres :)

Drove for around 60 miles listening to some 15 mass-masala/classic telugu songs and took an exit from I-10 to some town called Sealy, TX. 

Thought of having some coffee and breakfast there. The roads were smaller, simpler and older. It was nice driving there. And, the place was having older model street lights like the ones we have in India :).

With just some 10 mins of driving, reached the downtown of the place. The downtown area was again a small place but was really awesome. There was a clock tower in the center and a set of all varieties of shops and banks on both sides of the roads. It was just like one of those city centers they show in hundreds of american movies which I was finding in Houston.

Being weekend and just 8'O clock in the morning, none of the shops were open. I just got down and walked around. Anyway, couldn't find any open local cafe to have my breakfast. And, I had already decided not to eat in any of those Franchises which are already available in Houston.

Got back to I-10 and continued driving. After driving for 20 miles, found another exit to a town called Columbus.

Immediately took an exit and entered the town. This also looked like a small place and I was just slowly driving around. Luckily, saw a board called Becky's Cafe. 

It looked like the exact place I was looking for. Even though, it was looking simpler outside, it was quite spacious inside. Looked like run by a group of ladies, it was nicely decorated. There was a small pastry hut in the middle of the place and 

it added to the beauty of the place. 

They were really very friendly. Being a vegetarian, I did not have much of a choice and so ordered scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, Chocolate cream pastry with lots of coffee :). 

Everything tasted really good. May be because of the weekend, lots of families visited the restaurant for their morning breakfasts. Many of the american families, really enjoy their family breakfasts in weekends. I have seen many times. The complete family from grand parents to parents to kids will be present and will have good time. Some kid's simple birthday celebration was also going on in one corner. Had a really long breakfast for some 45 minutes covering some news and gossips from the iphone :)

Started from Columbus at around 10:00 AM and this did not join the I-10. And, instead stayed on US-90 which goes in parallel to I-10 but will have provide better view of surrounding farms and villages than from I-10. 

Even though there was no breathtakingly beautiful scenery around, there were some really nice things I saw:

some huge huge farms-agricultural equipment-old cars just lying around-beautiful isolated small houses in the farms-rugged people driving their trucks with their cowboy hats-lot of cattle roaming around in the fields,,etc. I couldn't stop and take many pictures and being a photographer I am, the ones I took were also pretty awful :)

After driving for around 70 miles, my next stop was at BUC-EEE'S in Luling. 

It is really a great place to stop. Even though there are lots of good things there, they are most famous for their Restrooms :D. Apart from maintaining them very clean, they have a very good old texas cow boy kind of theme they follow which makes them a must place to visit. The whole place is very nicely designed full of old cow boy movie style boards and decorative items. They have amazing collection of food items too.

Had some junk food and nice coffee there and did some shopping too.

It was around 12:30 PM by the time I had started back from Buc-ee's.

Now I was just 60 miles away from San Antonio. So I needed the GPS to guide me into the city. Also, as I had no idea what I was going to do there, did some searching to spend some nice places to spend the afternoon and evening. Found that all of the places are nearby to downtown. Selected some very old Majestic theater as a destination GPS and started to San Antonio.

It was around 1:30 by the time I reached the downtown of San Antonio and found some parking.

It took around SIX and HALF HOURS to travel 200 miles :). I had really enjoyed every moment of the driving and music and all the intermediately stops.

The downtown was old and good. Was able to spend next four hours walking around all those beautiful places and parks around. The must see of San Antonio is the River walk. Its like the city of Venice. We should see the River walk in morning as well as in the night. 

 

Had a nice leisurely Italian lunch at 6:00 PM in a restaurant on River Walk. Spent the evening watching a good music concert(piano competition), which I thought I may not enjoy much. But, I ended up spending three and half hours there. The singers and musicians were really great(At least to my standard :)) and never bored with such a variety of songs. It was also fun. Some new things I saw were:

people requesting the songs and they playing them dynamically-piano competition-the participation from the crowd and enthusiasm they have-continuous auction of space on the mirror there which people can buy and write messages on.

Someone even proposed through that space :)

Finally started back to Houston at around 10:30 PM with a single break only at BUC-EE's for a 24 ounce of coffee :) and reached home by 2:00 PM.

It was fun. Will surely have to plan one more such unplanned trip again :)