Today was the beginning of the long haul across Texas. The dreaded day.
I am not going to lie; I had many predetermined notions of what I felt Texas would be like that were entirely ungrounded in reality. And boy am I glad that I was wrong. Surprisingly enough I actually almost enjoyed the long ride across half of this gigantic state. I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of greenery compared to New Mexico and Arizona’s stark desert lands only broken up by sparse shrubbery. There were rolling hills and cut out passes for the highway through nice limestone walls and it was rather enjoyable compared with the experience I thought I was going to have today. Touche Texas, touche.
There really was nothing on the way to San Antonio from Las Cruces. Nothing. It was hard leaving Las Cruces and our family behind after such a short visit, expecially knowning that we would be driving all day with nothing on the road to distract us. So to remedy this we made our own distractions by finding obscure and random stops to make. The first of which is the supposed World’s Largest Roadrunner in Fort Stockton. Paisano Pete was his name and he was pretty fun to find and take pictures with in the middle of nowhere.
After that we planned on seeing some road side imitations of the Eastern Island Heads but sadly got lost and never found this little roadside treasure and decided instead to push on to get to San Antonio.
San Antonio also pleasantly surprised me, I really enjoyed this town full of its own old time charm mixed with new ambience. There are a lot of things for us to see here and we were very excited to begin exploring even though the humidity had certainly set upon us.
Our first stop was the Alamo, which was nestled amongst the shops on the Riverwalk. Just crossing the cobblestone streets transports you into the old battelfield that was the Alamo and the history is almost palpable.
Surrounded by gardens and gigantic arching trees this little park was quite beautiful.
We then decided to take the trolley through the city and go visit the Mexican Market Place or El Mercado. This place was amazing. Anyone going to San Antonio must go here, it was so much fun and we got to get a taste of San Antonio and their neighbor’s influence upon them. There was an indoor and outdoor market with shops after shops lined up next to each other, filled with Mexican imported goods, leather works, Mexican and Southwestern apparel, clay and painted pottery and many other amazing things that we couldn’t help but marvel over for hours.
For some reason I really like these little pigs, they make me unexplicably happy.
Outside was beautiful as well, fully decrated and colorful the entire scene was extremely welcoming.
We had dinner in an odd but wonderful place called Mi Tierra Cafe and Bakery, which is actually a twenty-four hour restaurant. It was so huge it was mindblowing, it filled at least four very large rooms and had two gigantic patio stretches looking out on the market. Every room was highly decorated with bright christmas like lights, pinatas and colorful paper. It was quite a sight to see.
The food itself was amazing and flavorful though the area was loud and bustling at all times. It was quite the busy hopping place, but it was just the right place for us to be.
It was a great night and I really enjoyed San Antonio, tomorrow we explore the missions and the Riverwalk in the morning and make a desparate drive to see if we can make it to New Orleans. Right now we are not so sure if we will make it, the mission visits are defifintly setting us off schedule a bit. So we will see what happens tomorrow.