Day 07: Sunday, July 08, 2012

No trip to San Antonio would be complete without a stop at the Alamo, so that's what we did first (after a little devotion and breakfast at the hotel of course).  It's like a tiny historic village right in the middle of downtown.  Skyscrapers and businesses built all around it over the years, but it's still standing. Inside the gated area are old buildings and and museum featured throughout out.  Complete with the mission (church) that once was the center of the village and a giant western gift shop.

From the Alamo, we walked down to The Buckhorn Saloon & Museum - the oldest saloon in Texas and known as the site that Teddy Roosevelt recruited the historic Rough Riders.  The story of the saloon is that the founder was a avid collector of animal horns, tusks etc so as the business started in 1881, he began accepting animal horns, heads, and the such for payment from cowboys and visitors.  The place is covered with the collection to this day.  His wife also began making art pieces out of rattlesnake rattles but we DID NOT go look at that (If you know me, you know that snakes are a no go.)

From there we walked around downtown and visited the River Centre mall for a bit. Then we took a boat tour of the river.  It lasted about 45 minutes and our tour guide, Kara, was hilarious.  She told us all about the city and the history along the way but added in her own personal commentary that kept me and Becca rolling the whole time. (I guess you could say we were "rolling on a river"...get it??? haha)

San Antonio

After the river tour, these two girls were HOT. And I'm talking temperature.  We went back inside the River Centre for frozen yogurt and then headed a couple blocks over to La Villita, San Antonio's first neighborhood.  It was super cute and is now filled with local shops, art galleries and even has a local market set up in the center.

Then we took it back to the hotel to regroup and repack some things before heading over to the Tower of the Americas for dinner.  The Tower is the second largest free-standing structure in the US (next to the Stratosphere in Las Vegas and just ahead of the Space Needle in Washington).  THe restaurant there is the Chart House and it sits at 650 feet above ground...and it rotates while you eat!  So we got the view of the entire city.  It was unbelievable to see it all at one time.  Becca and I tagged teamed the blessing that night because we both wanted the chance to talk with JC so close to the heavens like that. haha  After dinner, we went one floor up to the observation deck where we were almost taken away by the crazy winds.  We were looking quite disheveled when we came back inside.  It was a sight, that's for sure!

We needed the night with a little planning a chilling in the hotel room - we had to mentally prepare ourselves for the next day's drive...