San Antonio

We started our day in San Antonio with a visit to the Alamo and this is what we saw: There was an “Open Carry” demonstration for long arms. It was upsetting for me to see all the semi automatic weapons around and we saw them throughout the day. Once inside the Alamo we felt a little better and enjoyed giving our liberal opinions to a reporter for Texas Public Radio. We were hoping one of us would make the cut to be on NPR but I don’t think the story even aired. Still it will be a fun memory. We bought Norah a coonskin hat and I loved listening to all the tourists comment on how cute she was – totally worth the $13! I was blown away by how beautiful the river walk was. I felt like I had been transported to Europe. It was so much fun walking along the river and eating lunch at Rita’s on the patio. My camera battery unfortunately died so I had to rely on my cell phone:( Then we toured, or at least tried to tour the missions. The kids were less than cooperative and there were weddings at two of the missions so we missed out on seeing the chapels. Still it was such a beautiful day and the missions were a lovely backdrop.  This is a picture I took from our evening boat tour on the River Walk. That was definitely my favorite thing we did. Before we left, we took a ride on the San Antonio Zoo Eagle which was a lot of fun. Alice has been fascinated with trains lately (I don’t remember Norah ever going through a train phase) and loved saying “choo choo” while we enjoyed our 3 mile ride After our train ride we walked through the nearby Japanese Tea Gardens which were beautiful. It was so peaceful there – it felt like a serene escape from the world. At the enthusiastic recommendation of my Aunt Diane, we stopped for lunch in Gruene on our way home for lunch and ate at the Gristmill Restaurant and enjoyed the live music. Bryan and my dad shared a huge rack of ribs that were reportedly the best they’d ever had. Gruene was such a cute town – someday I want to stay over night there at a B&B.