I had the great fortune of going out of town this past weekend to 1) celebrate my big brother’s birthday and 2) hang out with my friend Brooke.

While Brooke and I were sitting on her back porch catching up, we reminisced about some of our favorite shared memories.  I’ve gone on several girls trips with her, we did Boston together earlier this year, so there were quite a few to choose from.  However, we both landed on the same memory as one of our very favorites.

Here’s that story:

We’ve had a couple of girls’ trips fall over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend.  We all have that Monday off work, so it provides for a great opportunity to get away.  As fate would have it, Brooke had a timeshare in San Antonio and the weekend before MLK, Jr in 2014 landed me in San Antonio for a work conference.  Since she had the option of having a room, and I was already going to be there, our group of friends made a trip out of it.

The first night (Friday) was pretty tame.  I still had a half day conference the next day and they didn’t get to San Antonio until pretty late.  So, we knew that Saturday night was going to be way more of a night on the town.

We start that Saturday evening by going along the river walk and stop at Pat O’Brien’s for dinner.  We’re sitting outside at a long table and two men asked if they could sit at the empty seats on the other end of the table (we were at a really big table).  We all were cool with it and said “sure.”  A little while later, two women wanted to grab one of the extra seats at our table.  When she asked if she could have it, one of them men said, “It’ll only be $30!” and laughed.  Anna (one of the girls in my group) quietly said to me, “Then they owe us $60.”

So I did what anyone would do.  I loudly repeated what Anna had said to the men.  They both laughed and we all started engaging in conversation.  They were there on business, we were there for fun.  They were older than us, considerably.  One of them (Al) was a bigger guy with a booming laugh and polite demeanor.  His friend, on the other hand, had what I can best describe as an innocent, sleazy quality.  Randy (the friend) asked us all our names and when we asked his name, he said “Randy Lee…coming on strong.” I honestly can’t remember the story behind it, but it became the theme for not only him, but the weekend. Randy Lee (coming on strong) had stated his interest in our friend, Amanda, but we protected her and Al made sure to check Randy Lee (coming on strong).  They asked what our plans were for the night.  We said we were going to go over to a piano bar on the River Walk called “Howl at the Moon.”  Al asked if they could join us.

It’s at this point in the story that you may be thinking, “So they (us girls) were cool with just some random older dudes joining them as they went from one place to the other? Have you ever seen a Lifetime Movie?”  And to that, I get you.  However, we were in a group.  We were in public.  And we all recognized that Al kept his stupid friend in check and did not have any intention other than “let’s hang out!”  *Side note: Big Al is married with 4 kids and is a grandfather.

So, we all cross the river walk and make it to Howl at the Moon.  I have no idea what happened, but at some point between Pat O’Brien’s and HATM, Randy Lee (coming on strong) got into some type of altercation with someone and he was removed from the premises.  We thought Big Al might go with him, but he was like, “Nah – I just work with that dude.  He’s fine.”  And Big Al hung out with us all night.  He bought drinks, kept creepers away, and was a great guy.

At the end of our night out, he hails a cab.  At first, we were like, “uhhh, he’s NOT coming back to the hotel with us!” But, alas, he paid the cabby to drive us to our hotel safely.  We said our goodbyes and took off.

There’s lots of funny stories and inside jokes from this evening that I could never really type and make sense of for someone who wasn’t there, but we left that girls trip with wonderful memories of … wait for it… COMING ON STRONG!