San Antonio...300 years of Texas history

On Tuesday, we drove south to San Antonio. We began with a tour of three of the original five Spanish missions, all built between 1718 and 1731 so that Spain could expand into more of the new world and simultaneously spread Catholicism to the native peoples.

The Alamo, built in 1724 and originally named Mission San Antonio de Valero, was our first. Nestled in the heart of San Antonio and crowded with tourists hither and yon, we struggled to see many of the exhibits available, but managed to enjoy the sights within the compound in spite of that.

The Alamo

Much of the Alamo's history centers on the role it played in the Texas Revolution at the end of February 1836. The small band of Texas revolutionaries, who also protected the town of San Antonio and who vowed never to leave their post despite being overwhelmingly outmanned, died after holding the Mexican army at bay for 13 days. The final siege took place on March 6, 1836 when Santa Anna's troops stormed the compound at 5 am. Within an hour and a half, the Alamo fell.

Mission Concepcion de Acuna

Next we headed to Mission Concepcion de Acuna and then to Mission San Jose, considered the "queen of the missions". At each of these missions, the Franciscan friars worked to convert the Coahuiltecans to Catholicism and teach them to how to farm the land.

Mission San Jose

The Coahuiltecans, a hunter-gatherer tribe with a rich culture of their own, struggled to survive against European diseases and warfare with other tribes. The missions offered protection, housing and food in return for giving up their language, diet, clothing, religion, culture and even their names. Over 70% of them eventually died anyway from diseases brought by the missionaries themselves. Within 70 years those that remained were sufficiently assimilated into the Spanish culture and religion, and the missions were no longer necessary. In 1824 the Spanish secularized the missions and then redistributed the lands to the people still living in them.

Mission San Jose

The missions still have active parishes attending mass in their chapels. We even saw a young lady in her wedding gown with a photographer and several assistants taking her picture at Mission Concepcion...what a great place for that! Ken and I enjoyed our interesting trip through all that Texan history.

Heron looking for twigs

Famished, we drove back to San Antonio and headed for the restaurants in the River Walk. We were pleasantly surprised that the Lone Star Cafe offered a great porch from which to see the San Antonio River flow by, but also a tasty meal. Ken had the chicken fried steak, which he described as the best he's ever had, with a side of roasted corn and mashed potatoes. I had a burger and sweet potato fries. The fries were perfect, and just like Ken's entree, fried perfectly. Nice. The herons building nests in the trees above the river were amusing to watch snapping off twigs from the cedar trees and carrying them dutifully back to the little wifey.

After lunch we walked around more of San Antonio to the typical tourist spots. We tried to see more of the Alamo and despite the crowd managed to see the beautiful gardens behind the front chapel building. The gardens are full of gorgeous flowers and towering trees, but with all the people and the overcast day, we didn't get any pictures.

We next headed to La Villita, a small enclave of little homes built around 1819 that now house art galleries, specialty shops, and a cafe. Interestingly, La Villita is also the site of General Santa Anna's cannon line during the Battle of the Alamo.

The River Walk is an eight mile walkway one story below the street level that stretches along both sides of the San Antonio River through the city. Portions of it in downtown are full of restaurants and shops, but the rest of it meanders through the large buildings with benches and small waterfalls in among the little flower beds. We walked our legs off and headed to dinner.

Picture of Michelle I took in 1990(?)

For all the fun of our day, the absolute highlight of our brief trip to San Antonio was dinner with a friend I haven't seen in 20 years, Michelle. We met her for dinner at Chuy's Mexican Restaurant on our way out of the city and proceeded to gab non-stop for 3 hours, catching up on all those years in one sitting. We had a fantastic time and it was really great getting to see her! Of course, as I was so excited to see and talk with her, I completely forgot to get a picture of her. Boo. We had a wonderful time.