We enjoyed their Christmas Open House, a great Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with family, New Year's Eve and Day parties, and meals out with the family. You sure can't beat the fried catfish restaurants in the South, YUMMY! We were also introduced to a couple of great restaurants in Shreveport that were new to us: The Broken Egg for breakfast: great omelets with crab, chorizo, or crayfish, and Superior Steakhouse: great steaks obviously, but also some wonderful Cajun seafood entrees.
We had a terrific surprise over the holidays, our Bird of Paradise that we've been nursing along for 3 years finally bloomed! Turns out that the plants take 3-4 years before blooming for the first time. Who knew?
Heinz got the fridge installed, and the pantry and kitchen cabinetry completed before leaving Louisiana... the storage space is coming along wonderfully.
We've been in San Antonio staying on Lackland AFB for the past three weeks and with access to the base wood hobby shop have continued to work on the trailer. The propane and water are connected and we now have heat, hot water and a working cooktop. It was exceptional timing as San Antonio had record cold temperatures for a couple of weeks and even had a light dusting of snow.
We also managed to get the closet, and TV cabinet and dining table mostly completed (pictures to follow later when they're done). We now officially have beaucoup storage space! All in all, we are settling quite nicely into our rolling home.
We haven't let the sights go by the wayside. We did the "mandatory" tour of the Alamo and watched the IMAX movie on the battle (you were right Kathy, you DO tear up towards the end). We also wandered the Mission Trail and got to hear Mass at Mission San Juan de Capistrano (built in 1731).
The pictures above are (in order): The Alamo, Mission San Jose, Mission San Juan de Capistrano (two pictures), Mission Espada, and Mission Concepcion. The last one is the only mission that still has the original frescoes from the 1700's.
We've also taken advantage of some of the more fleeting events in the area. We've caught a few movies, including The King's Speech and The Rite. We have found the neatest little movie theater just a few miles down the road, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. As you buy your ticket you begin to get a sense that this is not your usual theater, the ticket clerk hands you your tickets and tells you to present them to your server in the viewing room. As you walk in the lobby you realize that there is no place to buy candy or popcorn, but there is a bar serving drinks and a gift shop selling movie paraphernalia. Then you make it into the theater itself and you find that they have taken out every other row of seats and installed rows of tables instead. A waitress comes by and you give her your order off the menu...pizzas, burgers, salads, chicken or fish and fries, a choice of about a dozen different beers, wine, cokes, and oh yeah, popcorn or candy. If you order popcorn it comes in a big metal bowl instead of a paper bag. Dinner with your movie. What a blast!
San Antonio is in the middle of the annual Stock Show and Rodeo. It goes on for 2 weeks, so of course we went last Friday night. Wow, what a spectacle! The stock show was for both 4-H kids and adults. The prizes for the top animals for the kids ranged from $1,000 and up for best in show, plus whatever the animals sold for. There were some good looking animals on display. There were all sorts of events going on all day, every day, but we only made it for the rodeo that night. The rodeo was then followed nightly by a concert. We got to see Train perform.
We plan to be here until Saturday and then move on. Next stop will be Marfa/Alpine, TX and the Big Bend area.
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