And The ADVENTURE Continues...: May 2015

Sunday, May 31, 2015

May 28, 2015 and May 29, 2015 San Antonio (Part 2)

Thursday May 28th and Friday May 29th

Day 3 (May 28th) Breakfast was on our own and we headed out at 9am. We went to two of the 5 missions here in San Antonio. Our first stop was at Conception. We had a guide who was very informative and we learned a lot about the 18^th century missions along the San Antonio River. Next stop was San Jose mission. Comparing the two they each had their own charm. I preferred Conception mission. It had more original things. After the missions we headed to the Tower of the Americas. It was part of the 1968 Worlds Fair. It is 750 feet tall and if elevators weren’t available you would have to walk up 952 steps. Surrounding some of the tower where a nice displays of waterfalls. We had a picnic lunch here. Last stop of the day was the Cathedral of San Fernando. It was founded in 1731 and it is the oldest working church in Texas. It was also the first church of San Antonio. This was a beautiful old church. Here is an explanation of the area behind the altar. “The area behind the altar is the Retablo of Jesus Christ. Here, Jesus Christ is shown in “agony” rather than the “clean” version. The message is that He suffered for us. He is surrounded by the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each one wrote the gospel and each one is represented by their symbols. St. Luke is represented by the Ox. The symbol of St. Mark is the Lion. St. John is symbolized by the Eagle and St. Matthew is an Angel. The Retablo itself is carved in wood, painted in the colonial style and decorated with 24 carat gold leaf. The artist is Leonardo Soto y Recendiz who works at the Cathedral of Mexico City.” This description was sent to me by the church itself as I couldn’t find anything on the internet about this area .Today we only walked 4 miles or 8000 steps not bad.

Mission Conception

Cross on top of church--Check out bird almost looks like a dove

Inside of church

Mission San Jose

Inside of San Jose

Tower of the Americas

Hemispere Park

Hemisphere Park

Alamodome from top of the tower

San Fernando Cathedral

Tomb of Lost Heroes from the Alamo

First thing that caught my eye

Inside of San Fernando

Blessed Virgin Mary & Jesus

Area behind Altar

Day 4 (May 29^th) Lazy day. We tried to sleep in a little longer which we did and had breakfast on our own. The boys needed to go to the Napa and to Home Depot and the ladies stayed at home. We caught up on laundry, taking care of some bills and just not doing anything. Nice. We had an 6:00pm appointment to Bracken Bat Cave. Let me give you some information about this unforgettable sight. This is the summer home for some 10 MILLION free-tailed bats. They are mostly females and come from Mexico to have their young here. These bats have only one pup a year. This is the largest population of bats in the world. The bats emerged about 8:30pm. The bats starting coming out of their cave by spiraling upward then off into the wind. We stayed for about an hour till it was dark and we could barely see them. The volunteers stated that they will come out of the cave for about 3 hours and then return at dawn. If you would like to see this for yourselves go to their website at www.batcon.org. You can see a small video of this and they are working on their webcam. All four of us thoroughly enjoyed our evening. After this performance we decided that a stop to Baskin Robbins was a must. Three of us had a 2 scoop banana split and 1 had brownie sundae. Delicious!!!!

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Bat Cave

Hawk just waiting for dinner - think it is a red tail hawk

Large walking stick

Pictures of bats emerging from cave and taking flight

Saturday, May 30, 2015

May 25, 2015 through May 27, 2015 San Antonio Part 1

Monday, May 25th through Wednesday May 27th

Travel day (May 25^th) Left around 7:30am emptied our tanks and was on the road heading towards Dallas. We were watching the weather the whole time as some parts of Central Texas were dealing with flooding, tornadoes and heavy rains. The day was nice and clear. As we started getting closer to Dallas severe thunderstorm warnings started popping up. We decided to stop at a Walmart in Greenville, TX to ride out the storm and spend the night. Had some winds and it rained hard but we were okay. I had made some beef stew that had been cooking in the crock pot all day and it hit the spot. After dinner we decided what we were going to do tomorrow as rain is predicted for the end of the week.

Kiira, Our co-pilot

This was a rest stop

BIG overpasses

Day 1 (May 26^th) This is the first time for me in Texas everyone else has been here but none of us have been to San Antonio. People are correct when they say that everything is bigger in Texas. The overpasses here are quite overwhelming. We sailed past Dallas, Waco( bigger than I thought), Round Rock( our niece lives here but we will see her at the end of the month), Austin( I thought was very welcoming), San Marcos( this is the city were some of the flooding has occurred), and at last San Antonio. We had reservations at Fort Sam Houston RV Park. The sites are level with just enough trees. We all will enjoy staying here with full hookups.

Nice bridge I think in Waco

Passing Round Rock

Austin skyline

San Marcos rivers overflowing

Site 32 Ft. Sam Houston RV Park

Day 2 (May 27^th) We started our day off with omelets to order. Mike was the chef this morning. We left camp around 11am with us starting at the Alamo. Very interesting and free but we had to pay for parking. After the Alamo we venture down to Riverwalk. What a beautiful place. We walked and walked for hours. Somebody did a good job on laying out all of the little features. What amazed me the most was how clean the walk was even under the bridges. We thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of it. We had a late lunch or early dinner at a Mexican restaurant (Casa Rio) on the waterfront. We were so full even ice cream didn’t sound good. We were home by 5 and we had walked about 9 miles today. Our goal was to try and get 10000 steps in a day. We exceeded our goal by 8000 steps not too shabby.