Today Spyro had us up at 4 AM with diarrhea and vomiting, prompting even more anxiety given Rocky’s recent troubles. When Spy then stopped eating entirely, an absolute first for a dog that will eat week-old lettuce with gusto, we rushed him to the vet. He was there by 7:30 AM and he was on IV by 10 AM, with early indicators being something probably wrong with his pancreas. As of this evening he’s still on the IV, still at the vet hospital, and is probably wondering where the hell we went when he needed us, as the hospital is one of the unattended types, so he and a few other overnighters are in there on their own….not his long suit (I can’t think of the last night he spent without us) and not our favorite scenario either but of course better than his being sick.

We spent the rest of the day frustrating ourselves with things mechanical, or at least I did. My cell phone display is down. The wireless router is apparently burned out, although Nexaira’s technical support disputes this for reasons I can’t phantom. The new tire-pressure monitor system I bought day before yesterday doesn’t, when installed, want to recognize four of the six RV tires. The Garmin couldn’t find any addresses we needed to go to….but this last we worked around anyway, getting to the San Antonio Riverwalk and the Alamo around noon in spite of the obstacles, which, once we were there, included a large bird accurately targeting me from about 50 feet overhead. This was so consistent with how the day had been so far that Irene and I both laughed in spite of ourselves, telling you more than I could here about how we had been doing up until that point.

Change was coming, however. To begin with, the Alamo was amazing. We rented a couple of the audio headsets and listened to a well-acted narrative that really did help me understand where all the passion is around the place. It’s clearly one of the defining institutions in our country, expressing as it does our resistence to tyranny and setting in place the call for patriotism, bravery and idealism that has ultimately characterized us, even in our worse moments. The fact that these couple of hundred brave souls essentially knew they were dead men walking days before their final breaths almost takes my breath away. I wonder if I could do anything that brave if I needed to, and I guess I’m glad I can’t answer the question.

The Riverwalk isn’t half-bad either…two square miles of really well-done walks along the river (hence, Einstein, the name, right?) and amazingly architecturally interesting shops, sights, people. Eventually we had to stop to eat, having pretty much exhausted our way-too-early breakfast, and, with no real expectation of good food, stopped at a little restaurant along the river called Boudro’s. Boudro’s is cute but that added to our trepedation about the grub…and, really, we shouldn’t have worried. It was by far the high point of the day…the “Good” in the above title. We would wind up sharing with our waiter, one of the mangers, Kyle by name, that we were really LOOKING to criticize the food and couldn’t find anything at all to whine about. The mesquite-grilled salmon was fresh, tangy, delightful…the brisket sandwich rivaled anything I’ve ever had for truly succulent meat…the fries were thin-cut, toasted instead of overly deep-fatted, and were lightly seasoned with something actually interesting. Even the side of black beans I ordered in hopes of getting the protein count up were tasty, fresh and different. When I challenged Kyle as to why the place had such truly excellent food, he laughed and said they had won “best restaurant on the Riverwalk” every year for as long as he had been there, which I think was eleven years. He said it’s frequented as much by locals as tourists and the only reason WE got in at all (this was 3 PM….not what EYE would have thought was a busy period) was because there is a convention of dentists in town and apparently the mid-afternoon sees them all back at their respective hotels flossing. He said that, in an hour, we’d never have seen a table and (again, given the food) I believed him.

We scarcely were able to stagger upstairs from there to Mr. Edward’s Ice Cream Parlor to finish off the already-too-much food with more…this time a rocky road sundae. And I wonder why I don’t lose weight. No, I don’t.

Anyway, it was good to finish that part of the day on a high note. The doctor said, this evening, that Spryro may well be ready to go home tomorrow…so maybe we can get out of San Antonio without permanent damage and relatively on schedule. We’ll see, but in any event the day was a roller-coaster that did have highs after all.