Day 162 (Sunday 12/30/12)- San Antonio, TX

After a grueling day driving through gloomy and windy weather we arrived in town down in spirits, health and energy.

Knowing that Brenda and David, our friends from Oregon, were in town and presumably ready to drown their sorrows after watching Oregon State lose to the Longhorns in the last quarter (by an unjust and excruciating four points) we rallied and were glad we did. Brenda and David had bucked up too. The loss of football games and nose fluid wouldn't ruin our night.

Meeting up at the Alamo we strolled the Riverwalk which was mesmerizing with all its multi colored Christmas lights and people milling about. We ate at the Republic of Texas to mixed reviews. I happened to overhear karaoke warbling from inside the bar. This led to an encouraging Brenda and David and a horrified Isaiah (not a karaoke fan) and unanimous but unenthusiastic reviews. It started off well, my first two songs perfectly catered to a Texan audience.

It was when Brenda and I dueted, after dismissing many suggested country numbers neither of us knew, in favor of our version of "Independent Women" that things slid downhill. It is accurate to say the crowd turned on us, best evidenced by the total lack of anyone "throwing their hands up with me." Not even a pity raise the roof emerged from Isaiah or David. We tried to muddle through but didn't know the verses, which were fast and the chorus, which we knew, but was genre inappropriate. It was a little bit of a hot mess. Fortunate for us the extremely drunk and extremely sweet Aggies fan liked us (Texas A & M has a fierce hatred for the Longhorns, so we had bonded) and whipped up a spirited chant of "Longhorns down." This received more cooperative and boisterous crowd participation than our plea for "all the ladies who were making dollars."

                                      
                                          Brenda and I