A Month Worth of Blogs in One! - Monday, July 24, 2023

To catch up to our new trip, I want to write about our last month at home. My last post was on June 25, 2023.

Because of the heat wave we had in San Antonio, I did the North Star Mall walk an additional 11 times over two-and-a-half weeks. I alternated between 5 km and 10 km distances.

On June 27, I did something completely different. The San Antonio Report online newspaper invited me to a complimentary interview with Mayor Ron Nirenberg. He is in his last term of office and has two years left. The event was held in conjunction with KLRN TV. A continental breakfast was served.

I felt like a fish out of water. The audience consisted of business people, media folk, and marketing reps. I met some very nice ladies, but I felt like the only thing we had in common that day was wanting to learn more about what the mayor wanted to accomplish before he left office. There was a lot of handshaking and networking going on.

Our emcee.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg.

The KLRN studio where the interview was filmed.

Part of the audience and production crew.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg and the interviewer.

The event was great. Mayor Nirenberg addressed several issues facing San Antonio. He explained generational poverty which is high here. That means that families get stuck in the same financial mold their forebears were in. A single mother makes less than a living wage and may work two to three jobs just to keep up with her food, rent, and other bills. She has never been to college and may not have finished high school. Programs are developed to help these mothers learn new trades that may triple or quadruple their wages. Their poverty level is around $19,000 per year.

Another topic the mayor covered is the need for light rail in San Antonio. Federal grants have already been approved for a north/south route and the project has been greenlit. The east/west route has some issues that need to be resolved with rights-of-way.

All-in-all, I was very impressed with Mayor Nirenberg. He thinks through his answers and is very articulate. A video was made of the interview if you're interested.

On June 28, both cats had a vet appointment (they go in together). I did a 10 km mall walk, and then Susan Medlin and I went to see "The Flash." The movie was okay, but I think I slept through a lot of it. In the late afternoon, I finished a jigsaw puzzle in the RV park game room.

This is also my brother Frank's birthday. We will catch up with him when we are on our Northwest trip. 

On June 30, Bob and I braved the heat at a San Antonio Missions baseball game vs. the Frisco Rough Riders. We were sitting in the shade and there was a nice breeze. It was fun to relax at the ball game.

We did a trip to Lowe's on July 2 to purchase a small, tabletop charcoal grill to take with us on our camping trips. Since there is such a high fire danger everywhere due to the extreme temperatures, we can no longer have a campfire. The grill has a lid to keep coals from escaping.

For the 4th of July, Susan and Darren invited us to their new home on a private airfield. We had Bubba's Burgers, hot dogs, chips, Texas sheet cake, baked beans, coleslaw, white sangria, Moscato, and watermelon. After dinner, we spent time in the pool which is in an enclosed pool deck.

Susan cooking Bubba's Burgers.

Bubba's Burgers.

Bob and Darren are in deep conversation.

Inserted here are a few random cat photos and photos from our mall walks.

Aldo Shoes window display is all about Barbie. Ladies
were stopping to take selfies in front of the display window.

 

North Star Mall in front of Saks Fifth Avenue.

Saks Fifth Avenue got in on the pink shoe craze!

Painted arches outside the new Round 1 Arcade.

A sign in the women's restroom. Ha ha!

Almost every morning there was a line waiting to
get into the Lego store!

 A mirror at the mall reflects our legs and shoes.

JoJo scoping out what's happening
outside the window.

JoJo scoping out what's happening
inside.

I guess she got tired of all that scoping!

JoJo and Sunnie both want to be next to me.

The fur-kids in their hammocks.

JoJo and Sunnie on our bedroom dresser
in the 5th wheel.

Our good friends Carol and Anita (who we met on our Alaska Excursion Caravan last summer) visited us in San Antonio from July 15-18. It was their first time in San Antonio so we showed them around. 

Dinner on Saturday night, July 15, was at Simi's Indian Restaurant. The food is excellent and we spent a lot of extra time chatting and enjoying each other's company. Luckily, the restaurant wasn't super busy.

After dinner, we toured around San Antonio and saw Woodlawn Lake Park, Our Lady of the Lake University and Elmendorff Lake, and walked around San Pedro Springs Park at dusk.

San Pedro Springs Park is a public swimming pool.

Bob, Carol, and Anita.

Bob, me, Carol, and Anita at San Pedro Springs Park.

Sunday, July 16, we went to The Alamo where we watched the History Channel movie in the long barrack about The Alamo and then walked around the grounds. In order to enter the Alamo church, you have to have a free, timed ticket. You can get it at a booth in front of the Alamo.

The six flags that have flown over Texas are on 
display in the Alamo church.

A docent in the church explains the original Alamo layout.

Carol, Anita, and Bob talk to the Alamo docent.

From there, we walked across the street to the historic Menger Hotel where Teddy Roosevelt had the official headquarters for the Rough Riders. A quick walk-through of the hotel lobby and courtyard was all we looked at there.

The downtown River Walk was high on Anita and Carol's bucket list, so we walked across the plaza and down through the waterfall courtyard out to the River Walk. Unfortunately, all the waterfalls were off! We walked part-way around the downtown horseshoe-shaped River Walk and Bob picked us up by the Aztec Theater.

Next, we drove to see the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River south of downtown. We drove by Mission Concepcion and Mission San Jose to Espada Dam on the San Antonio River. We did a short walk to look at the old and new Espada dams.

Carol, Anita, and Bob walk to the Espada Dam
historical marker.

The historic Espada Dam.

An overview of the old Espada Dam.

Bob likes to take everyone to Stinson Field, the original airport in San Antonio. Katherine Stinson was the fourth woman in the United States to receive a pilot's license. It's a cute art deco building and there are historic photos and articles displayed on the walls inside.

Stinson Airport.

Historical photo in the airport.

Our next stop a short distance from Stinson Field was the historic acequia (aqueduct) which has recently been repaired. There were originally six Spanish missions within 10 miles of each other in San Antonio. The reason for the proximity is that there was only one military fort serving the area, so the missions had to be close enough together to make it feasible for the soldiers to defend them. Also, the close proximity of that number of missions was unusual but made possible by the abundance of water. The acequias were used to irrigate the crops. Any water not used for irrigation was returned to the San Antonio River. 

The acequia bridges the gulch.

Anita, Bob, and Carol at the aqueduct.

Carol next to the repaired acequia.

We continued south to Mission Espada, the least restored mission in San Antonio. The church at Mission Espada is known for its "keyhole" door. 

Carol, Anita, and Bob at Mission Espada.

Anita, Carol, and Bob are in front of the keyhole
door at Mission Espada.

Inside Mission Espada church.

For those of you not familiar with the missions in San Antonio, the five missions are part of the UNESCO Missions World Heritage Site. Four of the missions are national historic parks, but The Alamo is run by the Texas General Land Office (GLO). 

The missions are not owned or operated by the federal government, but the National Park Service does maintain a Visitor Center at Mission San Jose where you can get information, watch a movie, peruse the grounds, or take a guided tour. The four mission churches are maintained by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio and Old Spanish Missions, Inc.

By this time, we were all getting very hot and we had some grocery shopping to do. We took a siesta for the rest of the afternoon. Bob wanted to make his wonderful chicken enchiladas for dinner. Carol and Anita came over to our place at 6 pm. We had another wonderful meal and conversation. Then we took a break so they could take Archie to the dog park.

We decided to go downtown to see "The Saga" at 9 pm. "The Saga" is a 25-minute, laser-light-and-music show projected onto the facade of the San Fernando Cathedral. It shows the history of San Antonio. In addition to "The Saga," we walked around outside the Bexar County Courthouse. It was a very full day!

"The Saga" projected onto the facade of the 
San Fernando Cathedral.

The San Fernando Cathedral in downtown 
San Antonio, TX.

Monday morning, July 17, at 9 am, we arrived at Mission San Jose when the Visitor Center opened. We wanted to see the movie first thing before we walked around the mission. As luck would have it, however, 75 FBI agents were having a meeting in the movie theater so the first movie of the day would not be until 10 am. We took the time to go through the small museum in the visitor center.

After the movie, we explored the mission's living quarters, granary, gristmill, and church. 

This exhibit shows the missions and the ranches
associated with them.

The Convento at Mission San Jose.

The Rose Window at Mission San Jose.

The front door of Mission San Jose's church.

Inside the church.

Carol and Anita admire the altar.

Altar at Mission San Jose Church.

When we finished in the church, we walked outside the back wall of the mission to see the oldest gristmill in Texas (1794). The gristmill was powered by water from the acequia. The mill could grind 60 pounds of wheat into flour in one hour!

Once again, the stifling heat got to us. We spent a little more time in an air-conditioned exhibit area and the granary, then we headed back to the RV park and our air-conditioned abodes. 

At 4 pm, we will meet and go to the Tower of the Americas for Happy Hour. It's always an adventure to ride up the elevator to the top. We had a bird's-eye view of downtown as we ascended. We were early enough to snag a table with a great view. Our dinner consisted of happy-hour fare. I had two fish tacos and Moscato.

We had planned to walk a different part of the River Walk downtown after happy hour, but the heat was miserable. We headed home. Carol, Anita, and I said our goodbyes. They're leaving in the morning for Galveston. It's been a great visit!

Tuesday, July 18, was relatively quiet until 4 pm. I joined Connie & Mike Johnson, Bob & Pam Emberton, Denny and Diane, Kim and Paul, Mal and Fran, Marty, and another couple I did not meet for Connie's 70th birthday party at BJs Roadhouse. 

Connie and me (sorry about the 
backlighting).

Kim, Connie, Mike, Fran.

Connie, Mike, Fran, Marty.

Connie with her cake.

After happy hour snacks and drinks, we all trooped back to Travelers World game room for cake, cheesecake, pretzel turtle snacks, and truffles. Bob joined us there when he finished work for the day. We had a fun time. Bob and I left to give Sunnie his insulin before Connie opened her presents. 

The rest of our week was spent getting ready for our trip to the Northwest. On July 19, I got my nails done. On the morning of July 20, I took the cats to the vet for Sunnie's glucose check and quick kitty physicals before we leave Sunday. At 9:45 am, I had a recheck of my carpal tunnel syndrome and asked the doctor for another steroid shot in my wrist before our trip. That is my last steroid shot. When we get home from vacation, I will have surgery to fix the carpal tunnel problem.

In addition to Bob working like crazy to get ready for vacation, on Wednesday, July 19, the check engine light came on in our pickup truck that needs to pull the 5th wheel. He took it to Truck Source Diesel on Thursday, July 20. They weren't sure they could get it fixed on Thursday; they had to order a part. Bob had to rent a car for two days because we were both so busy with appointments and such that we had to go in different directions.

On Friday, July 21, it was imperative that we get our truck back. We are supposed to get our 5th wheel out of storage and put it in an RV site so we can move all of our stuff for our trip! I had a dermatology appointment at 9:45 am and then a hair appointment at 10:30 am. I was cutting it close!

At 11:30 am, Bob called to tell me our truck was ready to be picked up. He wanted me to meet him at Avis Rental Car at the airport parking garage. I was nearby and picked him up within 15 minutes. We then drove to get his truck which was only five minutes away. Everything was perfectly timed!

When Bob got the 5th wheel out of storage, he had to take it for a safety inspection for the registration tags. He had that done within 15 minutes. Once the 5th wheel was on site, we had to go to an appointment on the other side of town. We got there a few minutes late. The meeting went longer than we thought it would so we had to hustle to get to the Tax Assessor to get the tags for our 5th wheel. We made it about 15 minutes before they closed. Whew!

By this time, both of us were exhausted. We took a break for dinner and let the sun go down before we started schlepping stuff over to the 5th wheel. 

Meanwhile, we had a friend who does RV repairs working on some minor stuff around the door in the 5th wheel. He had been working out in the storage area (no electricity for AC!) during the week, but it was just toooo hot, so he came back Saturday morning to finish up.

We moved things early Saturday morning, July 22, before the sun came up and again Saturday night after the sun went down. It was still 96 degrees. Our plan was to head out at 7 am Sunday morning, July 23.

Sunday morning before we left, Bob realized that he had not retrieved our 5th-wheel door key from Paul. That left us with only one key for a long trip. Yikes! So, Bob called Paul and he met us at 7:15 am at a place along our route that was near his house. We got our key back. And then we were free to travel!! We had an uneventful drive to Lubbock, Texas.

Monday, July 24, I drove for the first couple of hours. When Bob took over, the check engine light came on. What the what? We just had that fixed. Of course, that light covers a lot of issues. Codes galore are associated with the check engine light. That concerned us considering we thought we had it fixed on Friday.

When we were in the RV park in Lubbock, it looked like our RV tires were a little low. I asked Bob if we could get the tire pressure checked along the way today. 

As we were driving through Clovis, Texas, I saw a Bridgestone Tire dealer that was working on a truck behind the building. We pulled back there and they helped us right after they finished the truck they were working on. Such nice people. At first, they thought we had a nail in one tire and they were going to repair it. It was only a stone, so no repair was needed. They filled our 5th-wheel tires. We continued on toward Albuquerque.

We stopped at Forrest Tire in Clovis, New Mexico.

Very friendly staff checking our tire pressure.

Veterans Memorial in Clovis, New Mexico.

Historical marker for a disastrous event here.

Most of our travel today was steadily uphill. As we got to within 100 miles of Albuquerque, our truck engine (?) started making an unusual sound, kind of like mild grinding and the truck engine smelled very hot. Bob decided after we got set up in our site at High Desert RV Park that he would take the pick-up to get it checked out.

We like High Desert RV Park. This is about the fourth time we've stayed here. They have a lot of metal sculptures throughout the park.

Our site, #607.

This is in the High Desert RV Park.

The stormy-looking sky as seen from Camping World.

The U.S. flag at Camping World.

The brochure for High Desert RV Park had an ad for a shop that repairs RVs and trucks, so that's where Bob took the pickup. It's called Statkus Engines Service Center. They had a machine that read all the codes our engine has ever had. They said we needed a new air filter. Because of the high elevation and all the uphill today, the engine wasn't getting enough air! Bob said when they took out the old filter it was dirty and all messed up. The last people who replaced it didn't put the last filter in right; it was all crunched up on one side. He was back at the 5th wheel within an hour and even had time to grocery shop while he was out.

Things are clicking right along for us. You have reached the end of this month-long missive. Did you make it all the way through?