Pictures from San Antonio, Texas!

I'm so excited to post these pictures from the first stop on our very loooooonnnngggg road trip! We arrived in San Antonio late Tuesday. On Wednesday, we visited two missions - the San Jose Mission and the Conception. There are two more, which we'll visit sometime this week. After the missions (very peaceful and beautiful), we went down to the Riverwalk, walked a bit, had a fabulous lunch and took the Riverboat Cruise. This morning, we go to the Alamo (haven't seen it yet!) and back to the Riverwalk.

ABOUT THE MISSIONS

As beautiful and moving as the missions are, the mission story is not all a good one.

The native people of southern Texas lived happily as hunter-gatherers in a lush, green environment for a long time. Then, in the 1700's, they found themselves caught between two forces: Apaches attacking from the north and diseases brought by Europeans attacking them from the south.

The Spanish, well-entrenched to the south, sought to expand their land holdings and to convert the native people to Christianity. To save themselves, the native people of south Texas agreed to relinquish their lives as hunter-gatherers on the open plains to live under the protection of the Spanish missions. They helped to build, maintain and protect the missions and learned trades or how to farm the land.

Later, when the land once again was fought over, the Spanish were driven out and the missions abandoned.

Now the missions offer a serene and peaceful place where we can reflect on history and on the lives of those who lived and worked here. I imagined the open green alive with traders and workers, and imagined the sorrow of the native people who had known a different life and made a hard bargain for their survival.

Walking the now peaceful mission grounds and thinking of the lives lived, changed and lost here, these words resonated in my mind:  This too shall pass.

Here are the pictures from yesterday - Enjoy!!

RVPainter and me outside the San Jose Mission in San Antonio, Texas

San Jose Mission from the entrance . At one time, the whole green would have been like streets of a town. Later, the native residents lived in one-room "houses" in the walls of the mission, which became more like an enclosed fortress.

Closer view of the San Juan

Inside the mission church.

Front of the mission -Rose Window over the mission door

These flowers seemed like a combination of lilacs and bleeding hearts

Moving on to the Conception Mission, smaller than the San Jose

And now for something completely different, a picture of the Blue Crab Tostada we had for lunch at Boudreau's on the Riverwalk:

Oh my word, this was SOOOOO good! They also make the guacamole right at your table. I've got a video of that on my Iphone, but I haven't figured out how to load it to my computer yet. But I'll work on it!