Today we finished the drive into San Antonio and started hitting the various missions of San Antonio Missions National Historic Park. The park consists of a long string of open space, connecting four missions (plus the Alamo, which is a related mission but is not run by the NPS) along with an aqueduct that helped deliver water through the region.
Mission San Jose is the largest, and home to main visitor center, and was definitely the most popular. It has been the site of quite a bit of damage over the years and while the entire complex now sports a reconstructed perimeter wall, historic photos show many roads crisscrossing the plaza. The other missions are smaller, in varying degrees. All of them are active churches; we witnessed a baptism at one and a wedding at another.
After touring the missions, we headed downtown to the famed Alamo. The immediate area around the Alamo is a big tourist trap, with various lots charging anywhere from $5-15 for the privilege of parking. We were lucky to find an open meter two short blocks from the complex and paid only 45 cents. We arrived to find, even at this late hour of 4:40pm (less than an hour before they close), a line at least a block long – I’m not sure exactly how long it was because we couldn’t see the end of it. All of this to wander into the Alamo church, which is roughly the size of a 7-11. Kim and I took some pictures outside and then wandered around the museum and outdoor exhibits, skipping the indoor “shrine” that everyone else was wasting their afternoon in a Disneyland-long line to see.
We then headed north towards the airport to find a hotel and get food, which took us a fair while, before we settled into a relatively nice Best Western and spent the night watching the Emerald Bowl. After the game was over, we had to rework the trip plans. We ended up with two major options and several big decisions, and in end, decided to shorten the trip and drop Big Thicket National Preserve from the trip. It’s the easternmost unit and one that can easily be incorporated into a future Gulf Cost trip, and it also adds a bunch of late nights to the rest of the trip. It’s disappointing, but not surprising – we’re moving slower than normal on this trip, and Big Thicket was an outlier unit and the last place we tacked on before we left.
I’m still feeling crappy, but feel like I’m starting to turn the corner. We’ll see what today brings.
