Surprised by The Alamo!

We were so excited to get to San Antonio!  It is such a historic city, we couldn't wait to do some sightseeing.

  First stop, of course, the Alamo.

The building always pictured as "the Alamo" is the mission originally called Mission San Antonio de Valero.  Construction began in 1724. After seeing thousands of pictures, I expected it to be huge, not the small, sacred space it is.  The mission is now a shrine to the Alamo Defenders and contains artifacts and stories of the time.  There is a room with the original plaster ceiling where you can still see the shadow of the fresco designs.  The guide also pointed out "graffiti"- the soldiers defending the Alamo in the 1800's had carved their names in the walls. Because it is a sacred space, you can't take photos or use cell phones in the space. 

There are several other buildings on the plaza, including the beautiful gift shop

 

 The old well in the photo below is in front of another of the original buildings -the Long Barrack.  It was under one of the hugest Live Oak trees I've ever seen.

The grounds are beautiful!

                                     The koi are in part of the original acqueduct system.

                                        I got a kick out of the birds enjoying this fountain!

It was interesting to learn a little about Texas history.  I didn't realize how the Alamo we've seen in the movies was so important in U.S. history.

 

We decided to take another trip downtown to explore the famous San Antonio Riverwalk.  On the way, we saw this beautiful church.

                      St. Joseph's Church built by the German Catholic community in 1868.

The San Antonio River Walk is a pretty extensive trail along the San Antonio River.  We wanted to see the downtown section of the trail with its cafes, bars, restaurants, shops, etc.

This lock controls the water levels.  Behind it is a marina for the many tourist boats and river taxis on the river.

                                          There are gorgeous views everywhere you look. 

This is part of a stage with seating across the river.

One of the tourist barges.

They were decorating for Christmas.  There is a big river parade & official lighting of the lights on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Beautiful flowering tree!

There is a beautiful park, HemisFair Park, on the southeast end of the downtown loop of the River Walk.

It includes the Tower of the Americas.  There is an observation deck at the top.

Really a beautiful park!

One more bad selfie, but the waterfall was so pretty!

 

We have more to explore here in San Antonio and will be celebrating our Thanksgiving here.  We give thanks for this amazing opportunity we are having, and thanks to our families for their patience.  It is hard to be away during the holidays - we miss y'all! (a little Texan for you)

Have a very blessed Thanksgiving.

 

Texas Hill Country!

Our next stop on our journey through Texas is Lampassas - a little over halfway to San Antonio from Dallas/Ft. Worth.  We like staying off of the Interstate highways so we can see a little more of the country.  I had heard of Texas Hill Country - it is really beautiful with rolling hills, rivers, lakes and WINERIES!

The Court House in historical Lampassas is beautiful.  It is surrounded by many old buildings that look like they could have come right out of an old Western.

I love the detail on the eaves, the windows and the old wooden doors.

 

There were also a number of murals showing the ranching heritage of the area and

 

an obsession with cowboy boots!

The plaque on the wall said that the whole town brought boots to the artist to pile up for the painting of the Boot Roundup 2008 mural.

 

We also noticed the landscape becoming more like the desert ranchlands we saw in New Mexico and Arizona.

I loved the trees, so covered in lichens that they looked white - "ghost trees".

Pastures were full of these prickly pear cactus, juniper & cedar trees.

The cattle were curious about what we were doing - most of the cattle we saw were "Brangus" - a cross between Angus & Brahma.

Much of the fencing is 7-8 strands of tightly strung barbwire on metal posts with these branches wired in every 4-5 feet.

 

Lampassas is in the northeastern corner of Texas Wine Country, with the biggest concentration of wineries near the city of Fredericksburg (hundreds of wineries!!!)

We visited 4 wineries while we were in Lampassas, Fiesta Winery - very pretty winery.  The family who owns it lives right off the tasting room!  Then we drove down to Perissos Winery in Burnet (just south of Lampassas).

It was a beautiful winery, with a beautiful setting and the wines were all delicious - but very expensive!

We sat on the deck and looked over the vineyard at - what else - a Castle!

 

We also visited two wineries, right next to each other, owned by twin brothers!  They were Texas Legato and Pillar Bluff Wineries.  They had two different styles - mostly dry wines, but very good.  The brothers were a hoot - they were smoking cigars & drinking port while burning brush and giving each other shit!  It was a very enjoyable visit.

 

Next we are on to San Antonio!

Entering the Lone Star State!

We were both eager to get back on the road towards Texas!  But, we did take a couple of days to stop in Tulsa, OK at the U.S. National Arabian Horse Show. 

I haven't been back to the Nationals since it moved to Tulsa - it was nice to see that the ring is still beautiful, as are the horses.

I was a little shocked at the lack of attendance in the stands.  The years I attended in Louisville and Albuquerque, you had a hard time finding a seat on finals night.  The vendors said they thought the live feed of the show kept people from attending.  Too bad-they were struggling too.

I was glad to see that they still do the green shavings for final!  Fun to see many people we haven't seen for years.  Congratulations to all!

 

On to Texas!  We arrived in Glen Ellen, just southwest of Dallas/Ft. Worth, set up and happy to be in one place for a week.  I had read about Glen Ellen in one of our RV travel magazines and it is a beautiful little town on the Paluxy River. 

Our campground is in a city park just across the street from the river and Big Rocks Park.

It looks like this pile of huge rocks piled on the river bank.

There is a Riverwalk that crosses the river and goes to a park with some of the original buildings in the Glen Rose area.

The Riverwalk is on the right.  There are a lot of pecan trees along the walk.

This is one of the first homes in the area.  It is made of limestone.

This cabin is made out of square logs! You can also see the pegs holding them together.

Some info about the cabin.

The historic downtown area also has a number of unique buildings.

Beautiful court house

I loved this statue out front of the court house.

Many of the buildings are stone - mostly limestone. 

Many of them are a combination of stone, brick and wood.  The other thing that I found interesting is that many of them contain "stone" that is actually petrified wood!

You can really see it in this close up.

 

We also took a drive out to Valley of the Dinosaurs State Park. 

These were the only dinosaurs we saw!

But the park is named Valley of the Dinosaurs because there are preserved footprints in the stone of the riverbed.

We weren't able to see many of them because it has been so rainy in Texas.  The rivers are all really high.  But, it is a beautiful park.

There were several trails - obviously, many of them on the river, but there were also some up on the bluff.

Beautiful grassland area - TALL grass!

Huge oaks

Prickly pear cactus under the cedars

Some of the trails are a little treacherous.

But, even though we didn't see lots of dinosaur tracks, we did see evidence of lots of other critters.

Came back to our campground to new neighbors. 

One downside to the RV life is that sometimes the layout isn't great. 

They have lots of stuff that they like to put out - Yep, that's all theirs.

Oh well, they are very nice and we leave tomorrow.

 

Plus, we have mistletoe in the tree outside our door!