Thursday, 1 April 2010 Fine day, sunny, breezy. Close to 80*.
Link to pictures..
Busy day. Up & eat, head for San Antonio. Finally found parking not too far from the Alamo.
We walked to Alamo Plaza and looked at the memorial statue and signs, then entered the church part, no longer a church. The entire site is the responsibility of the Daughters of the Texas Revolution.
We wandered the exhibits in the church, then strolled out into a courtyard and heard a volunteer speaker describe the events leading up to March 6, 1836, the day the Alamo fell.
Much of the Alamo of that day is under streets and buildings, but enough remains to appreciate the size of enclosure 200 Texas men were trying to protect from 3,000 Mexicans. It was hopeless, and indeed the whole thing fell in an hour and a half once pressured by Santa Anna.
Still, it's stuff of legend and it's worthwhile being here to get a personal sense of it.
In the gift shop, D picked up a pin, and I bought a book to help us more in understanding it.
Then we bought tickets for a one-hour “trolley ride” around town. It turned out that the “trolley” was hors d'combat (faulty A/C), so we had a luxurious tour bus. We wandered all over and saw a bunch of things we don't need to go see, and a few we should go back for. One was the Mission San Jose, one of five Spanish missions in the area about 1800. At one time, they controlled or owned 5,000 head of cattle and 10,000 sheep. The missions were withdrawn in the early 1800's and the sites abandoned.
We went back to the truck and took it back to Mission San Jose and got into the guided tour by a National Parks person. She gave a very nice tour and showed us all over the site, which is quite large within its walls.
We had intended to continue to Mission Concepcion but ran out of will power. We thanked the chatty tour guide and took the truck through heavy 3-and-4-lane 70-mph traffic back New Braunfels. New Braunfels and the whole area around was settled by German immigrants after the revolution.
We went straight to the Friesenhaus Restaurant & Bakery, run by Germans named Bok who came here in 2005. Dolores had salad and trout, I had rollmops (pickled herring rolled around pickle with black break), then Thuringer Wurst with German fried potatoes and sauerkraut. Excellent. I bought a pastry to bring back to the trailer.
We're now settled in, processing pictures and writing notes.
Terrible oak pollen today – over 20,000 grains/cubic meter of air. Taking anti-histamines and still sneezing.
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