We'd entered the great state of Texas on 5/25/22 and made our way to San Antonio on June 1st. We had a reservation for a couple of nights at a KOA in San Antonio since we’d had a few people in our lives tell us that we should make sure to take in The Alamo & The River Walk if we were in the area. The day of our arrival was crazy hot (96° HUMID HOT). Once we were settled in, Karl and Penny retreated to the AC in the trailer and I walked myself down to the pool to take advantage of the opportunity. It felt good to go in the coolish/warmish water and then hang out for a bit in my wet bathing suit - because I COULD!!
The next day we drove into the city (about a 15min ride) and parked in a paid parking lot near The Alamo and River Walk. I really didn’t remember much about the Alamo from US history class, and given that the expression “Remember the Alamo” was ingrained in my brain I did, in fact, feel a little guilty about that since I, um, didn’t...!!
Seeing The Alamo was fascinating and we learned a lot about the brave men from a myriad of backgrounds (and states) who joined together and stood their ground for 13 days despite being outnumbered by approximately 200 in the Texan army to 1,800+ Mexican soldiers! They refused to give into Santa Anna's dictatorship even when it was clear they would receive no reinforcements and they would die there. We watched a great video explaining all the players involved - I had no idea Davy Crockett died at the Alamo! It was really interesting and definitely worth the effort to check it out.
We then walked around the River Walk for a while. It was amazing how many walkways and shops and restaurants there were. There are constant gondola rides going down the canals with tours but we were intent on getting ourselves some exercise as we took in the sights on foot. It really is a cool little area and we enjoyed the stroll. The shops and restaurants and views are pretty, but only when you make sure you’re on the right side of the walkway to be able to have some shade. This Texas heat is HOT STUFF!! I wish I knew how long the River Walk is, but I will just say that we easily got in our 10,000 steps (which we had NOT done at all since hitting this hot weather). We eventually settled for eating lunch at a Mexican restaurant and were so starved by the time that we found this shaded restaurant that we caved and ate indoors instead of with the river view, because we were whooped and ready for some nourishment and simply couldn’t wait for an outside table. Not much ambiance indoors - but the AC was a blessing!
When we returned to the truck I opened the passenger door and was confused by the sight of things being strewn all over until "light dawned on Marblehead" (sorry - one of my favorite expressions that I just couldn't resist) and I realized we'd been broken into!!!...#^*! They had gone through the glove compartment and the large console between the two seats and, as much as we could deduce they only came away with maybe $12 in bills and a few loose quarters. They left behind a bunch of gift cards (close to $200 worth) and lots of US postage stamps (which don't come cheap), so I'm pretty sure Einstein was NOT their middle name! We also had some important trailer tools (electronic tire monitor, our level tool etc...) that they moved around but didn't swipe. Oh yeah - and if they HAD dug deeper in the console they would've found $150 worth of rolled quarters! So, we took a deep breath, realized it could've been worse and headed back to the campground. We assumed that we'd miscommunicated with each other about locking the doors as to who'd done what - but didn't bicker and simply embraced that lesson and vowed not to do THAT again!
When we returned to our campground Karl saw on his phone that he'd been buzzed around noontime from his Ford app saying that the alarm was going off. And then he saw the condition of his driver's side door handle (i.e., it had been jimmied and now didn't lock). So the good news was we HAD locked the door (yayyyy us!) and the bad news was the lock was broken and we could no longer lock the truck (boo hiss). Of course once you've been broken into your need to lock your vehicle becomes all the more intense, so that caused a little stress. Karl researched for a couple of days as to what our options were and what he would need to do to remedy the situation. (For the record- Karl is GOOD at this researching and pondering thing.) It was looking like we were going to have to order some black (not our gorgeous red) Ford handles. After watching lots of videos he was leaning towards getting a passenger side handle as a replacement for the driver's side; since there is no key-lock on the passenger handle (and hence no hole to break into). The negative on that game plan was we would then be committed to pure electronics with no manual back-up; which always feels a wee bit risky...but since we have 2 key fobs it was definitely an option. So Karl and his mechanical brain took a few days to mull over his options while, in all honesty, I was feeling stressed out on not being able to lock our truck. I was advocating for quickly ordering them because goodness knows how long it would take for us to receive said handles once we placed the darn order! But Karl needed to ponder.
So, upon leaving San Antonio and during our first full day in Brownsville, Texas in the horrifically humid mid-90° weather, Karl dismantled the door of the truck to see what was what and further explore his options. Penny and I attempted to supervise/cheer on this important venture but it was too dang hot out there so we hid out in the AC in the trailer. The end result of this impressive undertaking was that he was not only able to fix the door handle so that we could lock it, but he took out the mechanism for the key lock so that any jimmying of said handle through the keyhole would be fruitless! So we got our end result and kept our beautiful red handles and it was all done for FREE by my most brilliant man!! (Insert a vvverrrryyy enthusiastic victory dance here!) Unfortunately, we learned the next day that the horn no longer worked from it’s big scaring-away-the-thief’s adventure, but that’s another problem for another day!
EDITOR’S NOTE: My props to anyone who picked up on my cleverly named title of this post! (San Antonio Spurs…”spurned” - get it??!!!)
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