Day 27 - San Antonio: The Alamo, Riverwalk

This morning we got caught up on some errands and then in the afternoon took the bus to San Antonio. First stop, the Alamo.

The remains of the Alamo church and some buildings are on display with lots of historical information about that period in Texas history. We learned about the Texians and Tejanos, and how the Alamo battle (along with the execution of hundreds of Texians in Goliad) helped inspire many in Texas to fight against the Mexican government forces. Shortly after on April 21 1836, with the call  'Remember Alamo!', the Texians led by Sam Houston, won the battle of San Jacinto against Santa Ana  troops. It was the decisive battle that clinched Texas independence, .

The Alamo church (the battle took place inside the church as well)

Inside the Alamo church

Huge beautiful oak trees 

Oak trees are well over 100 years old

The gift shop was build by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas that helped preserve the Alamo building.

Next we took a stroll along the River Walk. Very nice! Had margaritas in one of the many restaurants, Cafe' Rio.

Our table on the river

Along the walk

Various sculptures and murals along the walk

The main plaza near the walk, St Joseph's church

The remains of Davy Crocket, Travis, and Bowie inside the church

Huge sculpture of Tejano driving cattle

More of the river walk

Day 26 - Del Rio to San Antonio

Today we drove by the enormous Laughlin Air Force Base right outside Del Rio as we were leaving town. We could see some battalions of soldiers lining up. If I were born around here, I would have probably joined too.
We kept driving for miles looking at the Chihuahua desert. It's a no man's land, with miles and miles of creosote bushes with some, at times, really interesting rock formations in the horizon. We passed by rock hills with protruding rock formations like long stripes running along the summits. We found out they were called 'caballos', horses.
After so many days driving through the desert, we welcomed the sight of oak trees, dry grass and cows at pasture. We passed several creeks and the Nueces river. Soon after we crossed an area with agriculture. What a comforting sight after all that desert! We reached a town with a German name, Uvalde. This town had several brick historical buildings and looked quite pretty. But we didn't have time to stop. Our final destination was San Antonio.
We finally made it to the RV campground. This one is good, pool, Jacuzzi, library, exercise room. It has everything we need including a lot with a view on the river park.
We are staying here for 5 days at least.

Day 25 - Marathon to Del Rio

Del Rio is a bigger town than Marathon with super markets, car dealerships, Applebee's and all that.
The RV campground was big with amenities, but the lot assigned to us had pieces of garbage strewn about, an old sock, a medicine cap, cigarette buds,... not cool!
There are a lot of full timers here. In the morning, about 5 am, a large diesel truck was warming up for at least ten minutes making our RV shake. Bill did not wake up but I did... again not cool!

Day 24 - Big Bend to Marathon

A definition for ghost town is a town that has more people buried than living.

The town of Terlingua fits the bill. Some say that Terlingua is more an area because the people that founded it where constantly moving to find new mines.

We went to visit the cemetery because the night before there were candles in every tomb and there were folks around a bonfire. Some tombs were of the founders, some were recent of young ones.

This is the land of the Comanche war trails. Their story is like the barbarians in Europe, but as a matter of fact they are still a powerful native nation.
Along the road there were a couple of historical markers about this.

We stopped at a museum about dinosaurs roaming this area. The construction was very innovative and sustainable.

Day 23 - Big Bend State Park

No one is in the office to answer our questions. It's 12:30, lunch time.
We pay the fee and grab a map.
We drive along the river and stop to check out sites. We jog the short trails. We have been gaining weight lately.

At this site was the set of several western movies, including 'Contrabando'

Tipis picnic area

From the Big Hill

One of the best sites that we visited was the Closed Canyon. 

the end of the closed canyon

At the end of the trail, it is possible to keep going, but either you have good climbing shoes and a rope, or you just get wet. At the very end, we thought it would have been safer to have a harness and a rope. We were in uncharted territory and we didn't know if the canyon was really closed.

mystery creature home

transformative effect of water, the Rio Grande

Next fun spot was the Hoodoos, which is derived from an African word that means a spirit or ghost.

We kept driving north but we didn't drive to Presidio. Instead we turned into Bofecillos road, and then into Main Park road. It was late in the afternoon and we were going to drive towards the center of the state park on a long dirt road, where there was no way out on the other side.

We drove for 16 miles with some rough patches but in general on a pretty good road. We decided that we did not want to go all the way to the Sauceda Ranger Station, because it was too far and it was getting late.

We stopped to visit Ojito Adentro, a small oasis of cottonwood trees with a small creek going through. It's fertile ground for birds. We saw some traces of nests, but not that many birds. We are pretty sure we saw a red robin.