After leaving Van Horn, we continued east with only a couple of short stops on our way to San Antonio. We were there last winter but ran out of time to check out Riverwalk. Our original intention was to have Christmas dinner in the city, since we figured that there would be a selection of open restaurants to choose from. As we got closer and started to research our options, however, we had trouble finding a single place – beyond Denny’s of course – that was clearly open. So we called one of the nicer hotels near Riverwalk and asked the concierge, who verified that several restaurants were indeed open in the area.

After parking, we strolled down the walkway and scouted the place out a bit. We still didn’t notice anything open, in spite of it being crowded with people. After stopping into another hotel, we were directed to an Italian restaurant named Paesanos. We had a very nice meal and even took home some leftovers. We walked back to car and headed towards Houston, a smile on our faces and full stomachs.

Since we had spent most of the holiday driving, we decided to check out a nicer hotel for the night. We tried the Name Your Own Price feature of Priceline, landing a 4-star hotel for only $51. Or so we thought. When we arrived, we realized that we’d have to pay $16 to “self-park” our own vehicle in the garage and pay another $11 for basic wifi access (the hotel didn’t even have it available in the lobby). To add to the insult, the room would lack a refrigerator and microwave, which meant that we wouldn’t be able to eat our leftovers. Annoyed, we headed to bed early for what we hoped would result in an early start to the following day.

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.

That’s probably because our comfort level with these trips has dramatically increased. It’s also, frankly, probably a product of better gear. And by better gear, I mostly mean my iPhone 3G, which affords us internet access while we drive in the car. That’s incredibly useful – heck, we planned, researched, and reserved everything we needed for our big summer trip across the South on it – and so it feels like we don’t quite need to be as prepared as we often are.

It’s also due to fact that we’re getting by with much less gear, especially for camping, that we used to bring. And we could probably further cut down on what we’re bringing, if only I we had enough time to think about it and make the necessary eliminations.

Finally, I know that Kim’s put quite a bit of time in trip planning. And she’s getting pretty good at it. We’re both mostly on the same page when it comes to roadtrip decisions, and I felt more comfortable this time around letting her pick hotels and routes without any involvement. Speaking of itineraries, here’s what we have planned:

Dec 24 – Depart Phoenix, drive to El Paso to see Chamizal National Memorial, continue on to camp at Big Bend National Park.

Dec 25-26 – Spend both days seeing Big Bend (and the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River that runs through it), camping these nights as well.

Dec 27 – Depart Big Bend, hit Amistad National Recreation Area, and continuing driving southeast, staying at an EconoLodge in a town called Harlingen.

Dec 28 – Drive to Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site, then visit Padre Island National Seashore, camping there or nearby somewhere.

Dec 29 – Drive to Big Thicket National Preserve, explore the park, and find somewhere nearby to camp.

Dec 30 – Head into San Antonio to see San Antonio Missions National Historic Park, adding a stop at – what else – The Alamo. Stay in an EconoLodge in the city.

Dec 31 – Finish up San Antonio, drive up to the Lyndon B Johnson National Historic Site, and then over to Austin to spend New Year’s Eve and part of New Year’s Day. Stay in a Days Inn.

Jan 1 – Explore Austin a bit more before hitting the road and driving back west. Camp somewhere near Fort Davis.

Jan 2 – Visit Fort Davis National Historic Site and drive to Guadalupe Mountains National Park where we’ll camp for the night.

Jan 3 – Finish up Guadalupe Mountains and high-tail it back to Phoenix, arriving late.

Jan 4 – Rest, relax and unpack before starting back at work on Monday, or…finish driving home if we haven’t kept to our schedule.

It should be a good time. We’ll add eleven National Park Service units to our lifetime total, and more importantly, complete all of the units in Texas. That will make only the seventh state we’ve completed (Nevada, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Tennessee, and Kentucky are the others), though we’re only one or two units away from finishing Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Indiana, and Missouri (not including Eastern and Midwestern states with only one or two units).

We’ll try to keep the blog updated, but with so few nights of guaranteed wifi, that may not happen that frequently. However, you can check out Scott’s tweet’s here and Kim’s tweets here for shorter updates, as well as some summary posts right here.

Scott’s also posted a map of our route and a quick explanation of why we chose this roadtrip.