A Winter's Day - Saturday, December 30, 2017

The Mamas and the Papas captured today's walk perfectly. 

"All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray
I've been for a walk on a winter's day..."

 ** from "California Dreamin'" **

Yes, south-central Texas does get winter days. The temperature was in the low 50s when we started walking at 9:20 a.m. A group of five of us headed out on a Volksmarch from Mission San Juan to Mission Espada. Bob and I opted to do only a 5k because I am recuperating from a mild cold.

To begin our walk, we strolled part-way around Mission San Juan's grounds. We then proceeded through the archway to the Yanaguana Trail.

Dee, Christie, Andy, and Bob

After the Yanaguana Trail, we re-entered the
arches to continue around the mission grounds.

Mission San Juan

We found an oak tree in full color

Wow, gorgeous color!

From the mission grounds, we headed across the San Antonio River on Bergs Mill Veterans Memorial Bridge. We followed Mission Road up a hill, past the end of Stinson Municipal Airport's runway, and around to the Espada Aqueduct.

Crossing Bergs Mill Bridge

Christmas cactus

Dee and Andy checked out the historical marker

 Below is a seed pod on a vine which is growing on the Mission Road bridge.

When we came around to the Espada Aqueduct Park, we were greeted by construction barricades meant to keep cars out. People, however, could get around them (carefully).

The Espada Aqueduct (acequia) is part of the original aqueduct system used by the missions for irrigating their crops.

Espada Aqueduct as it crosses a creek

Espada Aqueduct through the farmland

At the aqueduct

Bob talking about the history here

Espada Aqueduct

From the aqueduct, we followed this segment of the bike path back to the main Mission Reach Bike Path.

Christie, Andy, and Dee

I thought I would escape being
photographed today, but Bob got me.

Once back on the main bike path, Dee, Christie, and Andy headed south to Mission Espada to do the 10k walk. Bob and I headed back to Mission San Juan. In the aqueduct next to the bike path, we spotted this turtle who definitely was not interested in being spotted!

Turtle hiding in its shell

After the walk, Bob went to work, and I headed over to Susan Medlin's house to work on a jigsaw puzzle. That was a fun change of pace, so to speak.

Tomorrow, we're off to Fredericksburg, Texas, to do two Volksmarches: one during the day, and one at 12:01 a.m. to ring in the New Year. It's going to be cold!

Mission San Juan Volksmarch - Tues., Jan. 26, 2016

Today's 10k Volksmarch starts from Mission San Jose. From the mission we take a road to the River Walk Bike Path. Once on the bike path, we are soon alongside the San Antonio River.

As we head south, we pass Espada Dam. At the park by the dam, kayak and stand-up
paddleboard rentals await the adventurous who want to tootle around in the pond behind the little dam. Not for us today. We are on a "mission" to complete our 10k walk before the rain comes.

Our goal for today are the grounds of Mission San Juan. As we near Mission San Juan, we see the newest art installation along the Mission Reach of the River Walk: "Whispers" by Arne Quinze.

 

Me in front of the sculpture

Susan M. at the Whispers sculpture

Our excitement came when it started raining, lightly at first, then heavier. We were close to the museum at Mission San Juan. When we reach Mission San Juan, we run into the museum for a checkpoint stamp on our walk cards. The rain has arrived.

We wait in the museum for about 15 minutes, then decide to bite the bullet and walk in the rain. We got pretty wet before the storm let up. Our pace quickened even though the rain was lighter, we could see lightning and hear thunder. Huge black clouds were ahead of us.
Thankfully, it did not rain on us anymore on the way back to our cars.

We headed to Taco Cabana for lunch, then went to see "The 5th Wave," a sci-fi movie. Both of us had read the book and thought the movie did a good job of following the book.

That's all for today, folks.

It's a small world after all - Sun., Apr. 3, 2016

Friends of friends are wonderful as we found out on Sunday, April 3. Here's how we met Pam and Tom ... I have a great friend online who lives in upstate New York. We met many years ago on a cat group (Yahoo, I think). Over the years we stayed friends and migrated from Yahoo to Facebook. We keep in touch with each other almost daily via Facebook or our multiple online Scrabble games. Her name is Nicki and I've never had a chance to meet her in person.

On Monday, I received a personal message on Facebook from Nicki telling me that some friends of theirs were in "North Texas" and maybe we'd like to meet them. I explained we are in South Central Texas in San Antonio, so didn't think we were very close to them.

A couple of posts later, Pam chimed in to say they were at Thousand Trails by Medina Lake just outside San Antonio. Well, now, that's a different story. They were darned close!

They mentioned they hadn't spent much time at The Alamo because it was too crowded last time they went. We invited them to meet us at our RV park, take the bus into downtown, go see the Alamo, and have lunch on the River Walk.

So that's what we did. Sunday morning is pretty quiet at The Alamo. We explored the grounds before the movie at 9:45.

Pam and Tom at the Alamo in front of
a huge cactus.

Following are photos of a trumpet flower plant. We had these in Hawaii and of all the trumpet flower plants I've seen, I have NEVER seen one with this many flowers! Holy cow. And look at the size of those flowers. So beautiful.

Trumpet flowers

These plants are profusely blooming right now.

Papaya tree with green fruit (not ripe yet)

The whole papaya tree

In front of the long barracks at the Alamo is a huge live oak tree that was transplanted at the Alamo in 1912. At that time the tree was already 40 years old!

Live Oak Tree at The Alamo

At 9:45 we watched the new movie about the Alamo which was created by the History Channel. Bob and I thought the new movie was way better than the old one. The new version had more of the events that went on in other parts of Texas, all related to the battle at The Alamo.

After the movie, we looked in the gift shop and then took some more photos. We wanted to thank Nicki for introducing us, so Pam and I waved our thanks.

Me and Pam in front of The Alamo

From The Alamo, we walked across the street, down some stairs, and went through the Hyatt Regency's waterfall court on our way to the River Walk where we would have lunch.

Part of the waterfall court

This mama duck had seven ducklings. Aww.

Pam and Tom had never been to the Rainforest Cafe before so we took them there.

Pam and Tom looking over the menu before they opened.

A big snake moves overhead as you wait to get seated.

The elephants move and trumpet about every 15 minutes.

We all found good food on the menu and sat back to enjoy the ambiance. (Ha ha, if you call gorillas roaring, elephants trumpeting and the sound of a rainstorm ambiance.)

A pretty aquarium was within view of our table.

Hello fishy.

Bob and Tom

 One of the waitresses was nice enough to take a photo for us.

Me, Bob, Tom, Pam at Rainforest Cafe.

My tropical shrimp salad with strawberries, mangoes,
grapes, pine nuts, mixed greens, shrimp,
and honey-lime vinaigrette. Mmmm.

After lunch we took a few more photos around the restaurant. Shortly after I took the photo of Tom and the tiger, a little boy walked by, looked up at the tiger and started screaming. Pam stayed a little longer to help comfort the poor tyke.

Great big iguana

Tom face to face with the tiger

We walked back to the bus. Our bus was at the stop so I ran ahead, flagged down the bus who was pulling away, jumped on and asked him to please wait for the other three people. (It would be 1/2 to 1 hour wait for the next bus!) The driver was very nice and even pulled forward so they didn't have to walk as far.

On our bus ride back to the RV park we had to make a long detour because a train was stuck across the tracks. Once back at the RV park, we hopped into the Escape pod and headed to Mission San Jose, "the queen of the missions." There, we watched a totally different film which is told from the viewpoint of the Native Americans. Well worth a watch if you make it to Mission San Jose.

Pam and I at Mission San Jose Convento

Bob at Mission San Jose

Mission San Jose

Mission San Jose

Pam at Mission San Jose

The Rose Window or maybe "Rosa's Window"?

Behind Mission San Jose, outside the back gate, is this mill, the oldest in Texas. 

The Mill

 Once back inside the gates, we walked through the granary.

The granary

Mission San Jose

Entrance gate to Mission San Jose grounds.

We then took them to Mission San Juan where we drove by just to show it to them. Then we parked and walked in to Mission Espada which is the least restored of any of the San Antonio Missions. The Visitor Center was closed today, so we did a short walk and headed back to the RV park.

Pam and Tom have two labs so they needed to head home and let them out of the motorhome. We said our thank you's and see ya laters. It was a very nice day with great weather. We'll keep in touch with Pam and Tom and hopefully see them again "down the road." Thank you, Tom, for buying our lunch. That was very sweet of you.

Thank you, Nicki, for introducing us to Tom and Pam on Facebook. We've made new friends. It's a small, small world.