On December 9, 2012 the TI Houston Alumni Association took an afternoon/evening trip to the beautiful historic city of San Antonio to view the Christmas lights on the river. As the 15 members and 11 guests left Bayland Park the temperature hovered in the upper 70’s; however, most of the travelers were adorned with heavy jackets. They had checked the weather forecast for San Antonio and found that a cold front was supposed to move in that evening with wind and rain dropping the temperature into the upper 30’s. With all that said, you can tell the search for the colorful lights that surround the San Antonio River was dauntless. I had armed the travelers with a Christmas shopping bag (hoping they would find a treasured Christmas gift), a map of the river walk and a bright red throw (to wrap up in or use as a pillow).

To pass the time on our way to San Antonio we played our usual Bingo. However, to keep with the season I threw in a few Christmas-themed games as well. One that went over well was the Christmas song picture game. The one that should not be used on a bus was the Wright family Christmas. For best results you need to be in a circle to play this game and not on a bus, in the dark, passing things across the aisle, or forward and backwards over the seats. Not to worry -- all turned out well and everyone had one more trinket, a flashlight, to put in their shopping bag.

As soon as the bus was parked at the Rivercenter Mall, our group disembarked and made a run to shop or seek that special dinner on the river that only San Antonio can provide. They all had their map of the area and the time and place to meet the river boat. Not a person was missing when it came time to board the boat. The only thing missing was the boat! This was soon resolved and we were on our way! The lights along the river were breathtaking; we felt like it was raining the colors of the rainbow all around us. Wait….weren’t we supposed to have rain, wind and cold weather as we floated down the river? God is GOOD!! We had a beautiful trip on the river. However, the weatherman was not too far off since we had barely left San Antonio when the wind and rain started to rock the bus. At that moment we were glad we did not have to drive in that horrid weather and thanked God for our good bus driver, Chris.

I hope everyone had as great a time as I did on this trip! Hope to see YOU on one of our upcoming trips!!

TIHAA Members:

Bobbie White, Jean Houston, Gladys Price, Patricia Oates-Collier & husband Richard Collier, Lillie Brown, Diane Murray, George Wolf, Deloris Baugh, Bernie Dennis, Janie Arsizo, Gwen Dickey, Daruth Jones, Mary Thompson & Mary Brown

Join us soon on another exciting Day Trip.