Post 16 San Antonio, Rockport, Austin TX

Nov 11-20 

We arrived in San Antonio after overnights in Van Horn and Sonora. 

The ravens that Anne has come to love have been replaced by grackles.  We’re surrounded at our campsite by their loud eerie calls.  Also, lots of white winged doves and Egyptian Geese.  We often hear owls at sunset while we’re cooking dinner.  The whole campground is in a forest of pecan trees so you can crack some open and feast on fresh nuts.

Our campground is on the outskirts of the city but the local bus into town stops at the camp driveway.  We hopped on for a $2.50 round trip fare.  We missed our stop at the Alamo and wound up in the sketchiest part of the city.  We bravely walked about a half mile before we got back to the Alamo area.

We took a tour of the Alamo, trying for a good hour to get a good handle on the history of the area.  Which war was when and who’s territory it was.  We finally figured it all out.  The Alamo was the symbol of Texas wanting to secede from Mexico.  Battles were fought for Texas independence.  Why at that moment in time??  Mexico had outlawed slavery and Texas wanted to keep it.

San Antonio is famous for its Riverwalk, and rightly so.  The San Antonio River runs through town and the Riverwalk follows it for 15 miles.  A hundred years ago it was proposed as a flood control solution after the flood of 1921 destroyed all of downtown.  It now has beautiful old growth trees and plants along with restaurants and shops.  We took a boat tour along the Riverwalk and treated ourselves to margaritas at one of the riverside bars.  We put our heads together to find our bus stop to get us back to the campground.  Success!

We hopped the bus again the next day and got off at the correct stop this time.  We decided to do a trolley tour that let us get off and on all around the city. 

Our first stop was the Japanese Tea Garden.  This location was originally an old quarry.  They filled in some of the bottom and created koi ponds, bridges, walking paths and waterfalls.  The do serve tea there in a bamboo structure.  It’s a lovely place.  If you knew it was once a quarry, you can see it in the steep walls, but otherwise it’s a lush green garden.

Next stop was the Pearl section of town.  The Pearl was an old brewery that is now a planned neighborhood with a hotel, apartments, restaurants and shopping.

We made our way back to the Riverwalk just to stroll and then back to camp.

We decided that we needed a few days to catch our breath, so we headed to Rockport, on the coast just north of Corpus Christi.  We spent 4 days just hanging out on the beach, at the farmers/craft market and at the brewery.  The weather was perfect, sunny and hot.  No shade trees at our campsite so we sat in the shade of the van or at the table on the little porch behind our site.  The sunsets here were stunning every night!

We headed to Austin to visit old friends, Rad and Linda from Massachusetts, who moved back to Texas about 5 years ago.  It was great to catch up with them and tour around their neighborhood.

On our third day in Austin, Cindy got a call from the care facility where her parents are.  They said that her dad was not doing well and that we should come home.  Rad and Linda immediately went into action.  “Leave the van here, we’ll put it in the garage”, “leave your stuff in the bedroom, no one uses it”, “find a flight, we’ll take you to the airport”.   We were able to get a direct flight to Boston that afternoon.

We plan to stay in Boston for 10 days before returning to Austin to continue our journey.