Gary asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. Wash my car! It hasn't been washed since we left Salem Sept. 3rd. As you know I'm fussy about my car, the dirt was driving me crazy. We went to a Rub a Dub, Gary sprayed and I scrubbed. By the way it rained the next day. We decided to go to the Tower of America's, 750 feet tall, built for the 1968 World Fair. The top rotated 360 every hour, we got there about 5:30 so we were able to see the city in daylight, sunset and dark. The fun was getting there. Back in August we bought a car top carrier for the Jeep, two days later I unsuccessfully tried to put it in the garage. Key word being unsuccessfully, it took Gary about a half an hour to free it. I absolutely forgot it was there, all I wanted to do was vacuum the inside. We looked for a parking spot near the Tower, deciding to park in the Hyatt's parking garage. We cleared the first 6'8" bar, as we descended the garage roof got lower. We heard a scrape, about that time a parking attendant came to our rescue and allowed us to park in a no parking area. Gary said he remembered it was there but....Dinner was excellent, a Chart House restaurant. The food was excellent, expensive but worth every cent. I got several calls from friends and family.
Monday, Nov. 4, We had a pretty quiet day, went to Wal-Mart for a storage bin, we brought way too many winter clothes. We spent some time re-arranging our clothes. We also put the electric blanket back on the bed, another cold front is supposed to hit. My blood must be thin, 65 seems cold. Fort Sam Houston is very old, an area called the Quadrangle was the beginning of the Fort, the city of San Antonio deeded 93 acres to the government in 1858. Deer and peacocks roam the grounds inside the walled fort. Early folklore said when Geronimo was a prisoner they fed him venison, others say that is ridiculous, the soldiers would have eaten the venison themselves and fed the Apaches rations, at any rate the ancestors of those deer have remained on the ground since. A tower built in 1870 to be a water tower is now a clock tower over 60 feet tall.
Tuesday, Nov. 5, one of the things we wanted to do here in the city is take the trolley tour. Our guide was a man born and raised in San Antonio, the tour took an hour several stops we'd already visited, the Mission Trail was new, the King William Historic district, where homes in that area are now worth 2-4 million dollars. We want to go back to visit the Market Square. Of course we passed over the Riverwalk several times, I had no idea it went beyond the downtown area. It runs for over 10 miles, originally built for flood control. Tourism was just a by-product. He said San Antonio is the 2nd largest city in Texas, the first being Houston and the 3rd Dallas. Who knew?
Thursday, Nov. 7. Since we have been to two presidential libraries already (Reagan & Nixon) we went to Austin to see LBJ's. on the campus of the University of Texas. We found a PetSmart to leave Luci in Austin while we spent the day sightseeing. His library wasn't as "fancy" as the other two but very interesting. The 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination coming up this month perhaps made this more meaningful. There were 10 floors of artifacts in the building but the public could only view three, the first floor had a 11 minute movie introduction of his life, telephone database that let you listen in on over 643 hours of recorded telephone conversations, an animatron of LBJ telling humorous stories and of course the ever present gift shop. The second floor you could explore his presidency, starting Nov 23 1963 and the top floor you could see a scaled down version of the Oval Office, Lady Bird's office and some family pictures. When you were in Lady Bird's office you could see the UofTx football stadium and campus. After lunch we went to Zilker Metropolitan Park located alongside Lady Bird Lake, a reservoir on the Colorado River that is damed close to downtown. Not damned close but dam (ed)
Friday, Nov. 8, Our trolley trip introduced us to a couple of missions so we decided to do the mission walk, you could walk past 4 missions on the Riverwalk, What a great place to walk and bike, we want to go back with the bikes and do the whole trail We started at Mission Espada, the furthest, founded in 1690 then walked up to Mission San Juan built in 1731, a little over a mile each way. We did manage to pick up a geo cache along the way. After lunch we visited Mission San Jose (1720) and Mission Concepcion 1731) both in the present city limits.
Sat. Nov. 9, Not much happening today, we stay out of the tourist areas on weekends. Gary and I took a long (for me) bike ride around the RV park and base. Top to bottom: The Tower of America's after dark, a peacock at the Quadrangle, the clock tower, inside the trolley with our guide, arriving at LBJ's Library, me in front of a cement mural of LBJ, the Oval office, view from Lady Bird's office, the capitol building and the Mission San Jose
TTFN Pam and Gary
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