Tour Day in San Antonio

We began by having the tour bus pick us up here at the campground bright and early this morning.  Our first stop was the Japanese Sunken Gardens.  This was a beautiful Japanese style garden which was transformed out of an old stone quarry.  It had been abandoned for many years, finally some Japanese citizens of San Antonio presented a plan to the City to make the old abandoned quarry a beautiful garden area.  After years of discussions, the City elected complete the gardens, which are not only beautiful, but also have one of a kind handcrafted artisan works which are spectacular.  From there, we went through a older premier subdivision which had many beautiful homes and large old trees.  Then it was time to ride the boat down the romantic San Antonio River which runs between the downtown buildings.  It has many sidewalk cafes and shops along the way.  The concept of this was done by a young architect, which was only 25 years old, and this area has turned out to the highlight of San Antonio.  What is interesting about the San Antonio River is that it looks like a man made canal like you would see at a theme park when in fact it is the actual San Antonio River around which the entire city constructed its buildings.  Then onto the Buckhorn Saloon and the Texas Ranger Museum. The Buckhorn Saloon contains hundreds of stuffed animals from all corners of the world.  It was originally started where the saloon owner would give patrons anything from a free beer to a free bottle of liquor for a stuffed animal. It got so popular that wild game hunters from all over the world donated animals. It advertises over 520 different species, including fish from the seven seas.  At one point it was purchased by a beer company and moved to the site of the beer company's location.  Then, the beer company decided to move to another city so the heirs of the original family repurchased these items and opened the saloon back up in town. The Texas Ranger Museum is just....a history of the Texas Rangers and has a reproduction car of the one Bonnie and Clyde were killed in.  A very interesting place.  We were dropped off for a tour of the Alamo and lunch on our own.  It was recommended that we have the buffet at the Menger Hotel which was built in the mid 1800's and still operates today.  We went through the Alamo and learned the importance of the Alamo with regards to the formation of Texas.  We then had lunch at the Menger Hotel.  After lunch we were taken to two Spanish Missions from the mid 17th century.  We learned how the Spanish christianized the Indian.  It was kind of a sad story in that the Indians were forced to leave everything they had known, including their gods and their entire way of life.  They, in essence, lost everything and became slaves to the Spanish.  The smallest mission that we saw, which was Mission Concepcion, was built in the 1750's and has not really been restored and still has a Catholic service on Sunday.  The most amazing thing is the accoustics.  It is advertised as the oldest, unrestored stone church in our nation.  We also saw Mission San Jose, which has been restored but is ten times the size of Mission Concepcion.  We finished our tour by going to the Mexican Marketplace, called El Mercado.  Needless to say, our travel budget was not hurt at this stop!  The "authentic Mexican ware" is very similar to what you can buy at Pedros just over the Georgia border into South Carolina.  However, if you were in need of decorating a pueblo, this was your place.
We haven't decided for sure what we'll do tomorrow.  We know we need to hit a Wally World before heading to Austin on Thursday.
Again, we love you all and miss you