Day#192.8

Vacation day 5--continued

As we were walking back to the van, everyone ahead of me stopped on the sidewalk. Turned out it was because of a mama bird's failure to plan ahead on just where she was laying those eggs.

We left San Antonio after a great day, heading towards our country house. We stopped in Kyle, Texas for some BBQ. Jack was loving it. He and I shared a brisket and sausage family dinner. Caroline had smoked turkey and Sam a grilled cheese. Gary and Grant didn't even eat since they were still stuffed from their pizza.

Day#192.7

Vacation day 5--continued

Still at the Riverwalk. We all thought the cute bull dog at a restaurant was real, but it was just a statue.

Day#192.6

Vacation day 5--continued

More of the Riverwalk

Day#192.4

Vacation day 5--continued

Oops, wrong picture in that last one. This is us as we are leaving the Alamo. Jack and Gary went into a boot shop next, so the rest of us got a drink at the Buckhorn Saloon. The kids had lots of laughs with the funhouse mirrors and we all enjoyed seeing all the animals on the walls. Even a rhino, a giraffe, long horn steer, elephant, probably about every animal you can imagine that exists in the world of taxidermy was hanging in this place.

Day#192.5

Vacation day 5--continued

This was a full day, probably everyone's favorite. We really enjoyed being in San Antonio.  Well, maybe it was a bit too sunny for Grant but dang it, I told him to wear a hat. Here we are on the Riverwalk. It was just beautiful.

Day#192.3

Vacation day 5--continued

A live oak inside the Alamo

An interior wall

Us as we are leaving

Day#192.2

Vacation day 5--continued

The Alamo mission, it felt like an incredibly solemn honor to see and be inside this centuries-old structure.

The mood lightened a little outside where we talked to a couple of interpretive guys about the frontier tools and equipment like charcloth, guns, knives, and coins.

Day#192

Vacation day 5

We packed up the van with the suitcases, leaving our Austin house and headed southwest to San Antonio which was about an hour and a half drive. Gotta say, they make it very easy to find the Alamo and not in a billboardy, touristy way. It was in the center of downtown. We parked in a city garage which I thought was free on Tuesdays but it turned out that's not until after 5 pm, oh well.  We decided full bellies would make the Alamo tour more enjoyable so we had lunch sitting outside at a place called PizzaRita. It was good, just took a long time for Sam to get his pasta for some reason. Gary and Grant had a meat pizza that was loaded so they were very happy.

We walked to the Alamo and whoa, what a solemn place. No hats, no pictures inside, no loud voices. And what history!  It really got to Gary, knowing what that battle was like and how many died. And they were settlers from all over, one from Illinois, six from Missouri, one from Scotland, Ireland, England, Rhode Island, a McKinney from Tennessee, and on and on including Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, Jim Bowie, and Steven Austin. There were some survivors but they were limited to women and children and a slave.  A total of 189 defenders died fighting against Mexico for those thirteen days of February/March 1836.

Day#191. 2

Vacation day 4--continued

We walked to a nice Tex Mex place called Serrano's for lunch and it was good. After a warm walk back to the parking garage, we got the van and explored Austin. Downtown was pretty busy and congested. Gary and Jack continued on their thrift shop hunt on foot while I drove around getting flustered.  We finally met back up and I felt like smoothies for everyone would be good after not being able to find the donut place I'd driven by earlier.  After walking up to this hippie stand called JuJu Juice, I quickly assessed no one in our family was going to want a smoothie here, but felt too awkward to just walk off so I chose the smallest, least freaky one available which was called The Kalesy. You could hardly notice the pineapple, coconut milk, and banana for all the bright green kaleness. Plus, it was 7 stinkin dollars! Luckily Caroline liked it and she drank most of it.

We drove around more to see Zilker Park and Barton Springs Pool, a natural spring fed pool in the, again, Colorado River. The pool was closed though for some reason. We also discovered the eclectic part of town that we were expecting Austin to be like with music venues and cool restaurants and bars, but by then we were about tired out and ready to head back to our quiet house for the night.

Which would have been great if we weren't locked out. A deadbolt had been flipped on the front door that we had no key for. The garage door and back door and all windows were locked tight. I called the property manager but was unable to reach him or his wife but did reach someone at the emergency number I'd been given. This was another VRBO house we'd rented and I gotta say, we continue to have good experiences, despite the lockout. Someone was going to show up in an hour to get us in, so I suggested we just go eat some supper,  but in the meantime, my determined engineer husband and son engineer-to- be Jack had worked their way into the house through jimmying the garage door lock. Woohoo, finally it was time to relax and we ate heated up spaghetti and ice cream. 

Day#191

Vacation day 4

We got up and fixed breakfast, which was typically bacon and eggs each morning, before heading to downtown Austin. We went to the capitol building for a tour and learned so much. I wanted to also do the Tree Tour on the grounds, but the kids had no interest in that. Here in the pic you can see a live oak; their large branches grow downward and sometimes end up on the ground.  I found out the Texas state tree is the pecan. Anywho, the capitol building was quite an experience, built in 1888 and built massively. Each door hinge weighed 8 pounds alone.  The walls were probably two feet thick. The rotunda is the largest in the country besides the Washington DC capitol building. The star inside the dome's top spans 8 feet across but looked like a few inches, it was so high up.  The building is filled with native pink granite that looked just like our Rosewood house kitchen counter.

The Texas capitol is the largest of all the states' capitol buildings. An underground addition built in 1996 added 360,000 square feet to bring it to a total of 1,030,000 square feet. Amazing and wide open for citizens to walk through as employees worked, other than having to enter through a metal detector.  We learned about Sam Houston and Steven Austin and some of the former governors. We caught the final moments of this year's legislative session, viewing from the gallery level above.  No pictures allowed there.

In the lower level, Grant's twin was standing guard in his Texas trooper uniform complete with white cowboy hat. Caroline noticed him first and then we all agreed it looked just like a slightly older Grant in terms of coloring, face, head shape, body structure, demeanor, everything! Gary acknowledged him and he responded with just a tight-lipped nod. So Grant! I wish I had taken a picture of him but he didn't seem the type to appreciate such silliness, especially while doing his job.