San Antonio Missions

After Sea World, we drove to Mission San Jose to pick up the Jr Ranger program for the San Antonio Missions, looked around the visitor center, and watched a movie, then headed out to find a place to eat, a Starbucks frothing pitcher, and a place to stay. We found dinner fairly quickly, but drove around at least half of San Antonio looking for a Starbucks and a place to stay. The freeway system around San Antonio is pretty interesting. The city is divided by interstates 10 and 35, and 410 forms a loop around it. Plus there are a couple of other freeways and expressways forming spokes into it. Many of the freeways and expressways also have one-way, multi-lane frontage roads running alongside of them.

This morning, we drove to Mission Espada, the southernmost of the San Antonio Missions, via Lackland AFB. We couldn’t get onto the base, but Military Drive cuts through the middle, so we were able to see a fair amount. The sky was cloudy, and the winds had picked up, and we were glad we had gone to Sea World the day before. From Mission Espada, we worked northward toward downtown San Antonio, looking around and doing the activities at each of the missions. 

From south to north, the missions are Espada, San Juan, San Jose, and Concepcion. The kids were awarded their badges at the last mission, as shown above.

Next we drove to the Alamo, which is in downtown San Antonio, next to the Riverwalk. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anywhere to park the RV, so I dropped off Susan and the kids to look around while I circled around. They said it wasn’t very impressive – there was a fairly long line to get in and there wasn’t much there. No descriptions of the battle and little about the men who fought there.

Susan said the National Parks service definitely do a lot better at maintaining and explaining the importance of historical sites. I was disappointed because I had read of the Masonic ties of the men who fought at the Alamo, and really wanted to see the site and learn more about it.A few years ago, I had explained to the kids why the Six Flags parks were named that, but I think it took going to the Alamo for them to really understand it. In the above picture are the six flags that have flown over Texas – those of Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederacy, and the United States.