– Denton, Texas to San Antonio, Texas –
This weekend, Mark and I decided to take a trip to wrap up his county courthouse photography project for the state of Texas. He’s been working on it for ages, and we intended to finish in 2015. Alas, we didn’t quite make it, but we will get our final four counties this weekend: Maverick, Washington, Austin, and Colorado counties. The cities are Eagle Pass, Brenham, Bellville, and Colombus, respectively.
If you don’t know anything about this project, the idea is pretty simple: Mark wanted to take a photograph of every county courthouse in every county in Texas. He finished Oklahoma in one year way back in 2006. When asked why it took him so little time, he says, “That’s back when I was gung-ho. Now I don’t care as much.” I guess Ripley and I provide him with a lot more in the way of entertainment than he had back then.
In any event, to make our trip as useful as possible, Mark decided to do drive some library materials from his office back down to their original owners on a Friday in San Antonio, and pick up some others from a different library to take back to his office on Monday on our way home. We then have the weekend free to hang out down here in south Texas and get the last of our courthouses and play on the beach.
Speaking of the beach, you may be surprised. It is January, after all. Fear not, dear readers. We are in Texas, and the weather this weekend in unseasonably warm. It was about 76 F today, and we will see temperatures hovering around 80 and above through Monday. The weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse on Tuesday, but we will already be home by then and won’t care. I wore shorts and a T-shirt around this afternoon, the weather was so nice.
Since it isn’t far to San Antonio, we didn’t have to rush out of the house this morning. We got up and worked out, and left the house by about 8:30. We stopped at Panera for a bagel (and in Mark’s case, a breakfast sandwich), and we were on our way. Traffic wasn’t terrible for a Friday, although we did slow down considerably through Fort Worth. It wasn’t a huge issue, and with all of the construction being done pretty much everywhere in North Texas, I never expect a construction-free drive anywhere anymore.
Our morning wasn’t too eventful. If you’ve been following our reading habits, you’ll remember that Mark and I had just finished reading Polgara the Sorceress, and we’ve now moved on to The Belgariad. We’ve already finished the first book in the series, Pawn of Prophecy, and we are now about halfway through Queen of Sorcery. Mark is still pretty excited, even though we’ve read them before. He will just randomly bring up topics related to our books when we haven’t looked at them in a couple of days. I’m glad he likes reading by proxy, at least.
We took I-35 down almost to Georgetown, where we hopped on Texas 130, which is apparently also known as The Pickle Parkway. I had no idea. It’s a toll road, so we don’t usually take it, but we did avoid Austin entirely, which was lovely. There was no traffic to speak of on The Pickle Parkway. I can’t imagine why.
Lunch was Subway in Lockhart around 1pm. Subway is my food of last resort for the most part. Many places in the United States will having nothing but Subway in the way of vegetarian options, and I have had Subway sandwiches an uncountable number of times in the middle of nowhere. Since it is so prevalent as a forced final choice, Mark and I have developed a distinct lack of excitement about their cuisine. Don’t get me wrong- Subway is fine. I just don’t want to eat it when I could be forced to eat it again the next day when it is once again the only option. I’m glad that last resort exists too- I’m aware that it could be much, much worse. McDonald’s is not a good meal of last resort for a vegetarian. I guess I’d have a parfait? Do they make grilled cheese? I don’t even know.
We were in San Antonio by 3, and we made both of our drop offs before 4pm. When that was finished, work was done, and we drove over to our hotel to drop off our stuff. We knew we wanted to visit the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park on this trip, so we hightailed it over there to make it in before 5pm. We were only able to visit one with our limited time, so we chose Mission San Jose. The park has four missions altogether, and I’m sure we will visit some of the others on a later trip.
The fifth mission in the area (as I’m sure everybody knows), is the Alamo, which is not included in the park. Mark and I haven’t ever visited it together, in fact, and Mark has never been inside. I visited with my parents when I was in high school. My cousin graduated from basic training at Lackland Airforce Base in August one year. San Antonio is miserable in August, I must say. The air is so wet it feels almost like you are swimming through it. January has been lovely thus far.
Mission San Jose was in great shape, especially for something founded in 1720. The main church building was built in 1768, and it still holds services to this day. Ripley had a really good time looking around inside, and I was glad she got to go with us. We didn’t take her into any buildings, but she was allowed on the mission grounds. She was particularly fond of the ovens out in front of the quarters.
We had to wrap up at the mission by 5, so we took Ripley to the dog park after. We found one pretty close to downtown, and it was packed full of dogs at 5 on a Friday. Ripley got to play in the park for almost an hour while we watched her race around like a doofus. She was a little anxious with so many other dogs there, but she still managed to run until she was exhausted. She made a few friends with smaller dogs and puppies, both of which make her more comfortable. She likes dogs that don’t play too rough, basically. When fewer dogs are in a park, she has more luck finding a sweeter friend.
With the puppy now thoroughly exhausted and the sun starting to set, we dropped our kid off to for a nap at our hotel and walked across the street to Mi Tierra, which is Mark’s favorite restaurant in town. We really like it, and we always visit when we come to San Antonio. This is the first time we’ve stayed right next door (at the La Quinta, of course), so we really enjoyed the short walk and the total lack of parking issues. Watching people trying to park around San Antonio is just exhausting.
Since Mi Tierra also has a bakery in the front, we stopped on our way out to buy a couple of pastries. Tomorrow we drive over to Eagle Pass for a county courthouse, and then we will skirt past San Antonio and drive across to stay for two nights in Corpus Christi on the beach. With the weather looking so fantastic, we are really looking forward to it.
– Trip Total : 351 miles –
