San Antonio, Texas

We arrived in San Antonio on Saturday, driving north from Corpus Christi.  San Antonio is famous for its Riverwalk and the Alamo.  It is also not far from Austin, the state capital, so we made some side trips.  We are within the city limits, south of the main downtown area, and right next to the San Antonio river.  There seems to be construction on the river and so perhaps there are plans to extend the walk beyond the down town area.

Our RV park is quite nice, with a heated pool and hot tub.  Who says we have to rough it on the road?  We were also impressed by a number of RVs with Quebec licence plates.  We learnd that there was a group of 25 people from Canada here for three days.  They spoke French, giving this place quite an international flair.

The days are something of a jumble to me now, the night before we leave for western Texas and Big Bend National Park, but I'll just give the high points and no one will complain if things are out of order.  Well, we looked on the Internet Saturday evening for a church to go to on Sunday.  The RV park had informaiton about a United Methodist church not far from here but we found information that their average attendance was under 80 so we thought we'd find a little larger one.  We found a number of churches but not much information on size, so we rolled the die (maybe not the best way to choose a church...) and picked one.  The church was in a neighborhood not far from us and the sanctuary was about the size of our church in Gahanna when we started going there 20 years ago.  Attendance was about 30 people, mostly older women.  People were very friendly and we talked brifely with the pastor, who also preaches at a second church.

On Monday we drove to Austin, about 80 miles north.  We wanted to see the capitol building and other local attractions.  The capitol is made of pink marble from Texas.   The dome has statue of Liberty holding up a star (rather than a flame like the one in New York City harbor).  The building is taller than the US capital, as our tour guide was proud to tell us.

 

The Texas legislature is very different from other states, or at least the one in Ohio. They meet only 5 months a year, every other year!  This is their senate chamber.

There are large, 10 feet by 20 feet portraits at the back of the chamber of famous battles from the war of Texas independence from Mexico - the Alamo (where the Texans lost) and the battle of San Jacinto (where they won and Santa Anna surrendered to Sam Houston, who was wounded).

We also sent to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum (photography not allowed...) where we learned more Matthew ever wanted to know about the people, places, past, and present of Texas.  It was a great museum!

Austin also has the University of Texas, home of the Longhorn football team.  They have a humble little stadium that towers majestically over the campus.

The university also houses the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, which we visited.  LBJ was the president during much of Bill's college days and he was not very popular becuase of the Vietman war.  But Bill has a high regard for LBJ, especially because of his work for civil rights.

There is a replica of the Oval Office and other LBJ-era memorabilia.

This was really and LBJ day becuse we also visited the Johnson ranch (also called the Texas White House back in those days) about 30 minutes west of Austin.  It is about 1,500 acres and it it still a working cattle ranch.



On the way back to San Antonio we drove through the Texas "hill country" and stopped at a place called Luckenbach, made famous by being mentioned in a song by Willie Nelson (according to cowgirl Beth).

Matthew played a game of "chase the rooster."

The next day we visited the Alamo, but not without first having lunch at the Buckhorn Saloon, supposedly the place where Teddy Roosevelt recruited the Rough Riders.

The Alamo is very close to the center of San Antonio and the Riverwalk.

We walked a little and took the boat ride.  The weather was wonderful and it was very relaxing.

Earlier today we had a Skype video call with Matthew's class, a weely update.  This is part of this RV schooling and keeps him in touch with his friends from school. We then toured one of the other local missions, San Jose.

Matthew was able to get another Junior Ranger badge, his fifth for this trip!