Tuesday, January 16
After almost 3 months of summer-like weather, we finally ran into winter in San Antonio. We arrived yesterday (Monday) to partly cloudy skies but 70 degrees. But we knew the cold was coming so we saw everything we wanted to see yesterday afternoon.
First, we visited the 4 remaining missions that make up the San Antonio Missions National Park. All of them were in remarkable condition and relatively close together so it was easy to go from one to the other.
Then, after checking into our hotel, we walked the few blocks to visit the Alamo, which is actually the 6th mission. It was originally called the Mission San Antonio de Valero and is most famous as the site of the 1836 battle. There’s a very nice museum there where we saw Davy Crockett’s rifle as well as the rifle Fess Parker used when he played Davy Crockett in the old TV show. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but it was very cool.
Finally, we strolled for a while on the Riverwalk. It is a beautiful area with lots of restaurants and shops along the cobblestone walk. Of course, we had to stop for margaritas, chips and salsa. It was a beautiful evening, so it was a nice way to spend a few hours.
This morning was an entirely different story. By late Monday evening the city was under a winter weather advisory, and they were closing schools. A winter weather advisory for us is a foot of snow, but all it was here was temps below freezing. There had been a little rain during the night but by morning it was dry. It was cold (low 30s so we thought it was no big deal. Apparently though in Texas if it drops below freezing, they shut the town down and that’s exactly what happened. Downtown San Antonio was a virtual ghost town with only a couple of restaurants being open. All the museums and most of the shops were closed and bus tours were cancelled. Peter found an LA Fitness and went to swim while Lynn worked but he came back saying they were closing the center because of the weather. It really was a hoot. We walked a few blocks to the local AMC movie theater and luckily it was open, so we spent the late afternoon at the movies. We saw “The Post” with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. It was an excellent movie and was quite timely given how the current administration likes to deny access to the press if they report things he doesn’t like. We highly recommend it.
We’re off toward New Orleans tomorrow but must first take a side trip to Austin, about 70 miles north of here. Lynn accidently locked herself out of her client provided laptop and the only way to unlock it is to hook to the company’s network. Of course, that can only happen from one of the offices so, we’re off to Austin for what we hope is a quick trip. It means, though, that we won’t make it all the way to New Orleans but hopefully we won’t be too far behind schedule.
Talk with you again soon.
Love from us.
BTW. We took down the registration page as it wasn’t working properly. We submitted a tech support request so, hopefully, it’s working soon. Sorry for the inconvenience.