Long Key State Park Florida

Thursday March 4, 2010

The temperature was in the 60’s when we got up but 11:00 it was 67 but very comfortable for a short sleeve shirt. The sun is warm but Ben says the water is cold. He was wading out into the deeper water to throw his fishing line. Not for me and he says no skin diving with his new gear this year!!! He went diving last year, discovered his old gear was not in very good shape so bought all new gear on sale as we left the keys!

Great French toast for breakfast – sunshine, calm ocean barely lapping the shore, and good cup of coffee – what more could you want in the dead of winter!!
The day was totally uneventful. We read books; Ben fished (without even a bite for about 3 hours) and I looked for sea shells along the shore. There is interesting ball shaped coral that has possibilities for something so I am collecting near perfect ones and several other shells that may be useful for jewelry or crafts. Interesting that there is very little of the coral I collected last year.

Late in the afternoon we thought about buying fish for dinner or going out to eat. We decided to eat at the only restaurant on Long Key – Little Italy. I was not able to find much out about it other than they had seafood and Italian dishes. I did find a great free app for my i-phone that finds and gives recommendations for restaurants near your location. It is from trip-advisior which I sometimes post to when traveling. The restaurant looked small from outside but it was larger than it looked. We had an excellent dinner. Ben had Seafood Italiano - shrimp, scallops and mushrooms in a light Italian sauce and I had Snapper Lorenzo – snapper with a crab stuffing and a lemon/sherry sauce. It was absolutely delicious. We could have shared either dish and had a full meal – but we forced ourselves to eat the excellent food. I left behind enough broccoli for both of us for the next night!

Coming back into camp was difficult since you must work a combination lock that is hard to see in the daytime – we had to get a flashlight to read the numbers in the dark! The rest of the evening was spent reading and playing computer games. We again had to turn on the heater but keeping it on low kept the temperature very comfortable. The wind is what really cools it down.

Long Key State Park Florida

Wednesday March 3, 2010

We woke up with sun streaming in the back windows of the Sprinter. It is cool but a long sleeve shirt is all we need. Drinking coffee looking out on the peaceful ocean is definitely a pleasure. There is a stiff breeze but the tent over the table provides a pretty good break. We rode bikes and read this morning – can’t say we did anything else. I fell off my bike and skinned my knee and must have bumped my side on the handle bar as there is a sore spot…nothing serious. There are some interesting shells – different from last year so I am thinking about what I can do with some of them. A good 30 minute bike ride takes you to the end of the campground and back the other way to the park entrance. Good exercise. Tomorrow maybe I will try riding down the other way in the park to where a nature trail is through a mangrove swamp.

After lunch we drove 12 miles south to Marathon for some groceries and bait for Ben’s fishing tomorrow. I bought shrimp and will make spinach shrimp enchiladas for dinner tonight. Tomorrow will be fish night – either Ben catches some or we will go out and buy some. Marathon has a library somewhere that in another day or two I will try to find if I can’t find internet access on Long Key.

The spinach shrimp enchiladas were great if I do say so myself. The wind was quite strong and the temperature in the high 50’s so we cooked and ate inside which is a challenge with 26 inches of counter space! However it is workable and I do not have to do it very often. When you are flexible you can do about anything with a good electric skillet!

We read, played games on the computer and I worked on a project for the United Way. Now I really have to find internet to post this and send off my work. We set the heater on low for the night and it came on off and on during the night.

Jonathan Dickinson State Park to Long Key

Tuesday March 2, 2010

We woke up at 7:00 after sleeping for 9 hours. Hopefully we will catch up from last week! The main north-south train route goes through this park and numerous trains were heard during the evening and night – well the early part – and again this morning. When this blogger goes to sleep it takes something pretty loud to wake me so I have no idea if they continued all night!

We packed things back up much better and were on our way by 8:30. When we get to Long Key the Sprinter deserves a good cleaning inside. We drove through several parts of the park before leaving. It will be nice to explore on our return visit and we will have most of the afternoon unless we visit Palm Beach as I have on my mind. The drive to Long Key took only 4 ½ hours so we will definitely have some time to waste along the way. The highest point in south Florida is in this state park – Hobe Mountain – 86 feet high!! There is an observation tower so you can see both Hobe Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. We were directed by Garmin (our GPS Lady) to head south and before we knew it – maybe 3 miles we were in Jupiter. We came to the lighthouse we visited last winter and turned west back over to I 95.

The urban sprawl continues all the way south for the remainder of our trip. We were soon directed to the Florida Turnpike as I 95 goes right into Miami – we turned to the west and began paying tolls – a total of $8.50 but I am sure saved a great deal of time and aggravation that we would have encountered on I 95. The scenery consisted of palm trees, occasional fields of crops, shopping centers, apartments and condos, land-fills with thousands of gulls circling and finally we came to the end of the Florida Turnpike and were dumped into Homestead. We continued on through Key Largo, Islamorada, and finally made it to Long Key a little after 1:00. Total mileage for our trip from Kingsport to Long Key was 993.

Our campsite is # 19, and as with all the campsites here is directly on the ocean. When the tide is in the water is about 10 feet from our campsite. The temperature was 77 degrees and partly sunny. The ranger told us it was going to rain in the afternoon and a cold front pass through. We ate lunch quickly and set up the tent over the picnic table so we could have it up if it rained for an extended period.
The tent went up much easier than last year when we nearly took off with it in a gust of wind….but we barely had it up when the rain drops started. It may have rained lightly for a total of 10 minutes and then the sun and blue skies slowly blew in from the west and the rain was gone. It has remained partly cloudy for the afternoon and there is a breeze. At 5:20 as I write this the temperature has gone down to 72 degrees and I put back on a long sleeve shirt. When I look at Kingsport with 37 (snow) and Durham with 36 (icy rain) I feel very fortunate.

The afternoon activities were cleaning out the Sprinter, putting away things, riding the bikes, and playing with our new i-phones. We have internet on i-phone but not the computer. We will have to search out an internet hot spot for posting the blog tomorrow as well as hunt a grocery in Marathon (12 miles south). For tonight we will just eat what we have and see how the TV works. Jane went to the library on Saturday, has a whole tote of books and plans to read a LOT.

The tide has gone out and the water is 150 feet from our campsite. There are many shore birds in the tidal waters and several of the people camped here have small boats moored in the shallow water.

There is a full moon so Jane had hoped to get some good photos but the cloud cover kept that from happening. We can get 3 TV stations here but all are in Spanish so we will probably not watch much. No watching NCIS tonight!!! The water is lapping at the shore just about 10 feet from the back of the Sprinter.

Savannah to Jonathan Dickinson State Park

Monday March 1, 2010

Woke up at 7:30 feeling much more human than last night! We were on our way south by 8:30. This was a marginal La Quinta – if we had been paying for it I think I would have complained. It was clean and quiet and the internet and TV worked…that is about all I can say about it. The breakfast was very poor. I got the last bagel for Ben and had a boiled egg and raisin bran myself. The lady maintaining the food area brought out some frozen bread for people to make toast with after I got the last bagel!

We stopped at a truck wash in Brunswick to get two months of East TN grime and salt off the Sprinter. What had been a gray very dirty van became a shiny white vehicle after a good scrubbing and coat of wax. After another cup of coffee we headed on south down 95 and stopped at the FL Welcome Center for our complimentary cup of juice. There were 4 Border Patrol vehicles stationed at the border and various locations around the Welcome Center. It was a beehive of activity with a crowd of people coming and going.

Further down the road near St. Augustine we stopped at a Flying J Truck Stop for gas and I made lunch. The Sprinter got really good gas mileage yesterday and today – 24.8 MPG – very good considering part of this was going over Sam’s Gap! I think the Sprinter wanted to be where it was warm as much as we did!!! Fixing lunch I discovered my first mistake of the trip – and hopefully the last. When I turned on the refrigerator yesterday morning and put in the food – I did not notice it was turned up to highest setting – so everything is frozen! I guess the good side is we could buy seafood and get it home frozen – but the bad side was a few of the items had to be thrown away – the milk, cottage cheese, and a couple other things.

The scenery along I 95 is not really very interesting but the Red Maple trees were beautiful among the green pine trees. Most joyful was seeing the clear bright blue skies – it seems we have had drab gray more than blue at home these past couple months. Often there were white trails from airplanes crisscrossing the sky. From Jacksonville south we had 3G coverage on our phones all the time which was a surprise.

As we exited I 95 at Hobe Sound for our campground about 4:30 the temperature was nearly 70 and the sun very warm. We stopped at a Publix Market for a few items we needed and headed the 5 miles south to Jonathan Dickinson State Park. We were surprised to find our reservation was for a lovely site in a brand new campground. Wide paved level sites with tables. We were near the bathroom that was state of the art! We have power, electricity, are getting 22 HD TV stations with Ben’s homemade antenna. (of course half of them are in Spanish!!)



Our major activity was to unload all the stuff we had thrown in the van in the 30 degree temperature and organize and store everything suitably….it really did not take as long as we had expected. We have brought our bikes with us for this trip so it did take a little shifting around of things. I fixed dinner and we settled in for a couple hours of TV, photo editing, reading, and writing this blog. Maybe I will even will try to PhotoShop a couple photos. Sleep will again come easily! Today and yesterday were both approximately 400 mile days – about the top we like to drive in a day. Tomorrow is much less – about 250 miles to Long Key.

Kingsport to Savannah GA

Sunday February 28, 2010

We drove away from home with the temperature a cold blustery 31 degrees at 8:45 AM. This was probably the poorest job of planning Jane has done on a trip for years…we had made our reservations over 9 months ago as that is the ONLY way to get reservations at Long Key State Park in the Florida Keys. About 6 weeks ago we canceled the other reservations we had made for a week-long trip down and a week-long return trip. We reserved one night out coming and going at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Stuart FL and then got “free for points” reservations at a La Quinta in Savannah for the other nights of the trip down and back.

We were also going to make a stop in Durham on the trip down to visit the Harris’- deliver a bike, some Dr. Enuf and enjoy visiting Jeff, Robin and grandson Dan. Well this past week we deleted the stop in Durham due to Jane’s mother being in the hospital most of the week. We got her settled at her assisted living on Friday and although still recovering from bronchitis we left today so as not to lose our reservations for the week in the keys. Many thanks will go to all the great staff at Wellington and brother Jim for watching over things for the next few days.

We basically stuffed everything in the Sprinter as it was too cold to pack much…we will sort it all out tomorrow evening when we camp in Stuart. Little research was done on anything other than making the reservations – but off we went very anxious to get out of the cold weather. Our winter in TN has been unusually cold and snowy this year to say the least and we are hoping when we return in 13 days it will be SPRING !!!

There was no snow in Kingsport but as we reached Erwin and began the climb to Sam’s Gap there was hoarfrost on the trees – as we drove on there were huge icicles on the cuts in the mountains. There was light snow on the road near Sam's Gap and down the NC side of the mountain. Very gray and looked like it could snow at any minute. All along the highway were broken trees from all the heavy snow over the past 3 months. We were through Asheville in short order and stopped near Hendersonville for some more coffee. It was not until we started down Saluda mountain that the sun began to peak through the clouds.

The drive was uneventful as we continued on I 26 through Spartanburg and on to Columbia – we stopped for a quick hamburger somewhere along the way. The sun is warm through the windshield but it is still cool outside. When we turned south on I 95 it began to warm a little more.



The traffic south on I 95 was heavy but not so much going north - can't say I would want to go north either! When we arrived in Savannah it was in the mid 40’s and the wind had stopped blowing. The sunshine did make a difference in ATTITUDE. We are listening to a book-on-CD that we are both sure we have heard before but neither of us can remember much about it… not sure what that says about the book or about us! Jane was also interested in seeing how the phone service with new i-phone and ATT would be – we were never without phone service and internet was probably available half the time.



The GPS easily found our La Quinta – we arrived about 4:30. Jane began researching all the recommendations for seafood restaurants from her FaceBook friends. We found we were quite a distance (about 10 miles) from downtown Savannah and since we were both exhausted – Jane from being up so many nights this past week at the hospital and Ben from driving all day – that we just settled for a close-by seafood restaurant. We will drive into Savannah when we return in a little over a week. I read the recommendations for the Shell House which was less than a mile from us – some great comments and a few bad ones…but we went anyway and it was very good. The hush puppies were maybe the best ever and the oysters and catfish very good. It was nothing fancy but good seafood, excellent quick service, and it suited us tonight. Crab legs must have been a house special as I could not believe how many were being eaten – one lady at a table near us ate 2 buckets by herself!

Time for this blog entry, reading a little and a good nights sleep are going to help this blogger for sure! To illustrate how tired I am – I am not going out to the Sprinter to get my camera doc for downloading photos…that is just going to have to wait until tomorrow!

Tuscaloosa AL to Kingsport TN

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

We left Tuscaloosa at 8:15 anxious to have this last day of travel behind us. We are listening to a new book and it should last all the way home. The sun is shining and it is 38 degrees – cooler than we are used to but not what we had anticipated. The weather report in Kingsport today was freezing fog – that did not sound too good!

The drive was long – we stopped once for gas and once for a picnic lunch just north of Chattanooga. The rest stop was brand new with the travel pamphlet displays just being set up today. The signage was not even finished with Men and Women signs taped on the walls.

When we got in the Sprinter this morning – Garmin told us we would be home at 2:30 – we made it and found most everything in good shape. We have a couple rather sickly looking plants that badly needed water. We unloaded the refrigerator and brought in a couple loads of things we might need tonight but will leave most of the time consuming work for tomorrow. Ben has to do an inspection on Thursday and Jane has commitments for Friday but for tomorrow – no one will even know we are back! Tomorrow we will get the mail and deal with it; do the laundry; and unpack and clean the Sprinter. Then Thursday we will re-enter our lives…

In retrospect this was a really good trip – a good blend of urban and remote locations to visit. We knew the state of Texas was big and this trip proved it. Our total mileage for the month was 5,828. The only days we drove over 300 miles were those traveling to and from Texas. Most days the driving was between 50 and 150 miles. The state is quite varied in cultures, terrain, and in the types of agriculture, resources, and businesses. We saw some homes that were of lower income families but nowhere did we see overwhelming poverty. Granted we did not see every part of the large cities but we did see many neighborhoods that were far from wealthy. All people we met seemed very proud of their state.

We learned a lot of Texas history, we learned about Tex-Mex, Texas BBQ, and Cajun cusines. Jane was able to cook a wider variety of foods in the Sprinter than on previous trips. The weather was great. We had rain two or three days but the only day it rained all day was one of our travel days home. There were several nights we could have been cold without our heater. There were only 3 nights we did not have electricity and while a couple of them were cool, our sleeping bags did their job. There was nothing we would do differently.

In a couple days I will upload the missing photos and an overview of the trip.

New Iberia LA to Tuscaloosa AL

Monday , November 30, 2009

Rain woke us up. Looking outside it was gray and wet with no sign of any break in the weather. Looking online at the weather it looked like that might be our lot for the entire day…oh well we have had very little rain and all we plan for today is one tour and driving, driving, driving…

We headed out a side road to Avery Island and the Tabasco Factory. We got there at 10 till 9:00 and had to wait at the toll gate to the island until 9:00 to enter! Along this small road we drove past fields of rice and sugar cane – both irrigated from small canals.

The story of Avery Island and Tabasco was interesting.


The island was created when a salt dome pushed up from the water. There is oil under the salt dome. The salt mine here is one of the oldest in the country and was carefully guarded during the civil war and finally captured and occupied by the north. The family was here before the civil war and returned to their land after the civil war. They mined the salt first and then began raising the peppers when a friend gave them some seeds from Mexico. The peppers are still grown here but additionally in Central and South America because they have a longer growing season. The peppers are all picked by hand and only when their color matches a red stick the family has provided for each worker. The peppers are prepared the same day they are picked – by washing and then grinding and mixing with a small amount of salt. The “mash” is then packed in oak barrels that they purchase from Jack Daniel. The lids with one small hole are put on the barrels and sealed with a salt paste from their own salt mines and the barrels of pepper mash ferment and sit in storage for 3 years.The barrels from the other locations are shipped here for storage and further preparation.


Barrel of Tabasco Mash sealed with Salt
Only after the 3 years of aging is the sauce made from mixing the mash with vinegar and any other seasoning ingredients. We were familiar with the red Tabasco and green Tabasco but not the wide variety of products they made. We watched the bottling of both red and green sauce today. We also tasted two types of flavored ice cream – jalapeno (Ben’s favorite) and sweet and spicy (Jane’s favorite); Tabasco cola, several sauces, jellies, and candies. You could easily spend $100 without trying. We bought a few things and headed back outside. They had a restaurant bar and we purchased Crawdad Etouffee and Boudin that we planned to eat for lunch. They also had Red Beans and Rice and Crawfish Corn Maque Choux. We wanted all 4 but really did not need that much lunch!

Crawfish Etouffee and Boudin

It was still raining as we left Avery Island. The family still lives on the island and manages the Tabasco Factory which sells Tabasco in over 160 countries! They have a bird sanctuary and tropical garden on the island that is supposed to be very nice but it was 10:20 and we felt we needed to be on our way home.

The rain continued up 90 to I-10 to Baton Rouge where we took I-12 instead of I-10 to New Orleans.

Bayou along I 12 - probably 30 miles of this on an elevated interstate.

Near the Mississippi line we picked up I-59 and began driving north east. Our last gas stop in Louisiana was interesting. It was part liquor store, part fast food, drive through Margaritas, and normal gas station stuff – it was indeed interesting. It seems strange to me to be selling liquor and gas in the same location – particularly the mixed drinks!

Still raining we continued to the Mississippi Welcome Center where we heated our lunch in the microwave --- it was really good. The Crawfish Etouffee was outstanding and the Boudin very interesting. It is a sausage casing filled with rice seasoned with pork and various Cajun spices. We shared both and it was more than enough lunch. We may not have spent much time in southern Louisiana but we certainly sampled their foods!

We continued across Mississippi and into Alabama where we made the decision to drive until 6 or 6:30 and stay in a Comfort Inn. It finally stopped raining about 3 PM. We made one stop at a Cracker Barrel in Meridian Mississippi for a book on tape. Since most Comfort Inns have a microwave can eat some of our leftover food which was our plan for tonight. We stopped in Tuscaloosa and will be on our way to Kingsport tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be no rain. It is cold for us here – in 40’s and we expect it to be in the 30’s at home….back to reality.. Photos will be added when I have time

San Antonio TX to New Iberia LA

Sunday, November 29, 2009

We were up and on the road at 8:30. Pretty good considering we had to pack up and then unpack into the Sprinter! First stop was the Alamo so Jane could get a photo without all the tourists in front!

Last v1ew of Alamo

The sky was very overcast so we will have to see how the photos turned out. We were out of San Antonio before we knew it and on I 10 headed east. It was almost 200 miles and our only stop was at a Flying J for gas and a bathroom break. Jane also had to search for another book on tape – boy did she pick some bad ones…we tried 3 and rejected them all as boring and with no plot. When you were 30 minutes into a tape and there was still no plot – not a good book. We finally found one that was pretty good. When it is over we will have to make a stop at a Cracker Barrel or a Flying J to rent one… These next few days of driving are fairly boring if we don’t have books.

Traffic through Houston was not as bad as we had anticipated and we were straight through on I 10 without any problems.

Houston and its' Complicated roadways

Then we headed east to Beaumont and Louisiana. We stopped at a roadside picnic area and had lunch. Later we stopped at a HEB in Beaumont for Jane to get milk and some chili peppers etc. This area of TX has a definite Cajun flavor with lots of Cajun food in the market alongside the Mexican foods. There are numerous chemical plants along the gulf slightly south of us and we recognize the names of many places that have had serious flooding over the past few years.

We crossed the Sabine River and were in Louisiana.

Sabine River - as we leave Texas

Having been in TX for a month it is sad to leave. Louisiana had their welcome center closed so it was good we got a map and information book on the way down. We continued on towards our goal for the day – Avery Island LA. This is the location of the Tabasco Manufacturing Site and we wanted to tour and buy some hot sauces.

We stopped first in Abbyville but neither of their RV parks had bathrooms so we continued on to New Iberia and are at the KOC Kampground. We are 7 miles from Avery Island and will head there first thing tomorrow. There is also a rice mill here that we might visit if we don’t stay too long at Tabasco. We arrived at 5 PM and got a recommendation for a restaurant to visit for local seafood. We had a hard time finding the R&M Boiling Point – but finally found it and had crawfish and shrimp. Neither of us had eaten crawfish – it was good – tasted sort of like clams – a little chewy. But we can claim to have eaten them now in LA too!

Campsite at New Iberia

Back at camp we finished organizing the storage. We have purchased several things and had to find space for them! Now it is time to estimate possible locations for stopping. We think we can make it in 3 days if we drive close to 400 miles each day – today we drove 480 so maybe we can take off some time tomorrow morning for touring. We really do not have to be back until Thursday so we have time.

San Antonio - Mission Tour

Saturday November 28, 2009

This hotel was a zoo this morning! We could tell when we looked out the window at the parking lot that they were at capacity – every spot was full plus any other places you could put a car there was one there! We were up in time for breakfast so headed down – the elevators were packed with people coming up with plates of food or going down with luggage. We finally made it down and found a long line for the breakfast…I do not mean 2-3 people waiting I mean 15 or 20! I have never seen a hotel breakfast room like that. When we finally made it past the waffle making station things smoothed out a little and we got eggs, sausage, muffins, and some fruit and headed back up to our room. The breakfast area was full, the bar was full and the lobby was full – what a mess!!!

Later we headed out for our tour of the San Antonio Missions. A chain of mission established along the San Antonio River in the 18th century is a reminder of Spain’s most successful attempt to extend its domination of North America. The Franciscan Monks served as both representatives of the church and the crown. They recruited the native Indians to become members of their missions, taught them skills like farming, and masonry. The missions reflect the building style of the Europeans but were flavored with the art of the Coahuiltecan Indians. They plastered over the stone and painted their colorful designs – most of which are gone. All of these missions have a chapel that is still in use today. In fact two of the chapels were having christening services during our visits.

The Alamo – Mission San Antonio de Valero – was the first built in the area in 1718. It is not under the care of the National Park Service but is under the care of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

The first Mission we visited was Mission San Jose. Built in 1720, this mission had a large community organization and extensive agriculture program. One impressive structure was known as the Rosa Window which illustrated the skill of the craftsmen who built the mission.




Mission San Jose

Next we visited Mission San Juan Capistrano. It was located here from another location in 1731. They were known to have over 3,500 sheep and as many cattle. They also raised enough fruits and vegetables to sustain themselves and the fort that protected them. They also traded with other missions. The bell wall of the chapel was well preserved. This was one of the areas where a christening had just been held. The family was having a big family celebration in an area of the mission grounds.




Mission San Juan

Our third visit was to Mission Espada. This mission originally founded in 1690 in another east Texas location was moved here to the San Antonio River in 1731. Here the Indians learned blacksmithing, weaving, and masonry in addition to the agricultural skills. This mission is the only one that made bricks. This was the most remote of the mission in the 1700’s and is still the most remote of the missions from San Antonio today. Nearby this mission is a well preserved example of the aquaducts built to provide irrigation of the fields along the San Antonio River. The photos show the Espada Aquaduct – the oldest Spanish Aquaduct in the United States. It is part of what was a 15 mile system and this part is still in use today.

Espada Aquaduct




Mission Espada

Mission Concepcion was the final of our four mission visits today. It was also transferred to this area from another location in East Texas in 1731. This mission looks today much as it did in the mid 1700’s. We could not go inside this mission since it was undergoing renovations. As with the others the mission was covered originally in the colorful paintings of the Indians. This Mission had an internal room with several good examples of the painting still visible.




Mission Concepcion

These missions flourished until the late 1700’s until Apache and Comanche raids and diseases that wiped out most of the local Indians led to weakening of the missions.

After this venture we returned to the hotel and headed across to the River Center for some lunch and to go to the 2:30 showing of A Christmas Carol in 3D with Jim Carrey. We got food from the food court and sat outside listening to a Mariachi Band until time to go to the movie. Ben really wanted to see this 3D film and says he will remember 2009 as the year he went to 3 movies – and two of them in one week! The other was several months ago when we went to see Julie and Julia (?). The band was very good with two guitarists, a percussionist, and two guys who played various pan flutes.

When we got upstairs to IMAX the 2:30 show was sold out so we bought tickets for the 4:30 show and went back to the hotel for a rest. Checked email to find out Jeff possibly had a kidney stone and had gone to the ER.

We went back to the Mall and shopped a little and went to see the film. Ben loved it and it was a good rendition of the Christmas Carol. Jim Carrey is very good. The special effects are outstanding. Jane does not like the flying effects in IMAX films so just closes her eyes during that part to avoid getting seasick! Film over we walked down to River Walk to find supper. We ate Fahitas and Chimi at Rio Rio Cantina. The lights and carolers on boats certainly make a festive location – super festive! Jane tried to take photos but her camera just don’t capture the feeling at all.

Christmas on Riverwalk

It is time to think about packing up and heading out tomorrow morning. Found out Jeff is headed home from the ER with pain medicine and instructions to see his doctor on Monday. What a great visit we have had to San Antonio and Texas as a whole. We still have a good bit of travel tomorrow in TX before we head out across the southern states back to TN.

San Antonio

November 27,2009

Today was quite a day! We started with a boat tour on River Walk. We were too late for breakfast in our hotel so decided to have late breakfast somewhere on River Walk. We took the tour that lasted about an hour at 10:00. It gave us a good idea of the entire area – most of the River Walk is actual river with flood gates to protect the area in between the two gates. Then there is a man made canal section that goes to the Convention Center that was built when they had a World’s Fair here and to the River Center Mall. I would not have known the difference but learned this on the tour.

River Tour

After the tour we walked back down or up – not sure which – and stopped at the Zuni Grill and had a great late breakfast.

Zuni Grill
Ben and Jane at River Walk

Then we walked the other way looking in a few shops. We finally made it to the La Vita area which is composed of small homes from the early San Antonio days – they have been converted to shops by various artists in the area. Nice gallery of original arts – sculpture, paintings, metal work, jewelry, weaving – a very nice mix and we enjoyed lots of looking. Got several ideas for Ben’s metalwork and Jane got ideas for beading and uses for Christmas post cards from Grandmother Mynatt.

La Vita Shop

After all this walking it was time for a break. We returned to our hotel and had a short break. About 4:30 Jane went to Macy’s and the mall for her Black Friday shopping. There had been little traffic on the streets near us until now. Cars were backed up onto the interstate and they were bumper to bumper on the streets around our hotel. Made it into the mall and she actually found some great deals. Ben met her at the assigned place at 5:30. This would give us 1 ½ hours to walk a short way to the restaurant we had picked out, eat and walk back to our seats along the River Walk. We had to be flexible and change our minds – there was an hour wait at restaurants and the whole place was wall-to-wall people. There was a food court in the mall so we just stood in line there for some supper and when we got it found our seats outside and sat there to eat fairly decent philly cheese steaks. There were no seats anywhere in the mall food court. We also had really good cookies from a Toll House Cookie Shop.

The Christmas tree was lit and soon the lights in the trees along the canal came on. The chairs began to fill up. Ours were first row along the canal with only a few plants between us and the water.
Christmas Tree at River Center

This is the 28^th year for this holiday parade. There were to be 25 floats. They were built on flat boats – some borrowed from the Rio tour company and some from another company (our guide this morning told us this). The floats started at 7:30 in our location and continued at a fairly good pace for about an hour and 15 minutes.

Floats in River Walk Parade

They were all bright with lights, happy people, and most had live music. It was indeed a great parade. The end of course was Santa and Mrs. Claus. You would have to be in a holiday mood after this parade. The lady who sat beside us lives in Houston and told me she comes every year and brings some of her grandchildren. For them it is a holiday tradition to come to this event.

Ben and Jane at River Mall

We made a great choice for a hotel – we are a short walk through Macy’s and across the street to our La Quinta. We have been back in our room for an hour now and the roads below are still bumper to bumper traffic!