Car Tripping to San Antonio

A minor glitch in the system and we find ourselves minus our home for a few days. It is visiting its "other home" and I don't mean its home away from home, the storage unit. No, I mean the repair shop where routine maintenance occurs. Because of this and a desire to not be watching over the shoulders of the mechanic, we left to visit some areas that we have wanted to see for some time now.

San Antonio - the site of the bravely but disastrously fought Battle of the Alamo in 1836, an equally interesting Mission Trail of Catholic Spanish missions, and the famous River Walk on the San Antonio River, right through the heart of town. Oh don't misunderstand me here, it is not all educational/historical monuments and sites, there are also the money-making tourist venues: A theme park, Fiesta Texas; a water park and one close to town; an Imax theater; buggy rides; boat rides; walking/running/bicycle tours; and don't forget, geo-caches! And we did a fair amount of almost everything.

The skies remained totally overcast and fog enshrouded the area until way late in the afternoon. As a result, photos were hard to get. But hey, not a problem, surf the net and find what you want as long as you identify where it came from, right? (i.e. public domain) Well, we shall see!

The Torch of Friendship, downtown SA, a gift from Mexico

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_San_Antonio

 http://www.katiehaugland.com/the-torch-of-friendship/

The best way to see a new town IMHO: 

 http://www.sanantoniotours.net/offer/14381/Hop-On-Hop-Off-Double-Decker-Bus-Tour-in-San-Antonio#.VSKT2VriN-Q

 Nothing like a good cold morning and an equally cold wind while riding the open top of the double decker bus, to start the day off right.

The RiverWalk, a venue for all hours of the day or night, where a venue that makes San Antonio what it is today could have been lost forever if it hadn't been for a very civic-minded group of ladies:

 http://www.isironline.org/2012-san-antonio/#prettyPhoto

 http://www.utsa.edu/ee/APSI/Accomodations_DT.html

Of course, we rode the boats and walked part of the walk. You can also walk/bicycle the whole thing or even kayak/canoe the outer reaches of it, neither of which we were inspired to do this go around.

The Museum of Art, on the RiverWalk as well as the double decker bus tour, a fantastic overview of world civilization. Found in a revamped Lone Star brewery complex, it offers permanent and traveling exhibitions:

 http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60956-d108442-Reviews-San_Antonio_Museum_of_Art-San_Antonio_Texas.html

The Alamo:

 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/520953/San-Antonio

The Mission Trail, a series of 5  (used to be 6 in their heyday) missions along the San Antonio River:

 http://loscompadres.org  Concepcion which has been restored and is now a full blown service church.

And who could possibly ignore the Worlds largest cowboy boots (?):

 https://twitter.com/purosanantonio

 Entrance to Sea World San Antonio:

 http://seaworldparks.com/en/seaworld-sanantonio/

where one has to go through in order to go to Aquatica, 

 http://top-touristattractions.blogspot.com/2013/10/aquatica-san-antonio.html

I do so love to go to water parks, but alas, not in early spring where the temps are more conducive to ice skating than water fun.

And I could go on and on and on ....... but the time came all too quickly for our departure for Austin ... >