Rothgaber Travels: San Antonio with Mike and Kristie

We left the Rio Grande Valley on Sunday, February 28th, a day early to drive to San Antonio. It was the last day of the Olympics and Doug was quite interested in the gold medal hockey game so we were thankful we have satellite in motion! Our former Pennsylvania neighbors were in San Antonio to see their youngest son, Kurtis, graduate from AF basic training so we wanted to meet up with them on Monday before they flew home on Tuesday.

We started the day by going to Mi Tierra for breakfast. Mi Tierra is an eclectic Mexican Restaurant which is known for it bakery. Doug and I also love their Chicken tortilla soup and it is a restaurant we like to visit several times while in San Antonio. There is so much glitz at Mi
Tierra that it can be overpowering at times, but we still love it. The Mariachi musicians stroll around playing requests - nice and romantic for dinner, but at breakfast it was just nice background music.

The gentleman on the ladder above was an artist who was working on a mural on the wall of the one dining room. It was quite interesting to watch him work and I could have stayed watching him for quite some time but it was on to see sites.....

The four of us in front of a beautiful flower arrangement in the lobby of Mi Tierra. Notice we have bags in our hands! Yes, we had to take home some of those delicious pastries they are known for! Doug chose his usual pecan brittle that they are famous for along with the Mexican equivalent of an apple turnover and a pecan covered cupcake kind of thing. I got the mango turnover and Mexican chocolate cupcake. Yummm! Thanks Mike and Kristie - we are enjoying the tasty sweets!

We let Mike and Kriste set our itinerary since they were the short time visitors. We next headed to the Buckhorn Museum. In the photo above, Mike and Kristie are heading to the Buckhorn - Notice the animal trophies on the second floor of the building exterior.

This was an interesting buck. It had a record 78 points.

The eating part of the Museum had an old-time western theme of a saloon with trophies on all the walls. The photo above is a little out of focus, but the one below of another wall is better. We had sodas here and Mike and I watched Doug eat and brownie and Kristie eat a fried Twinkie.

Doug with a lion at the lobby which was under construction.

Next we started down the Mission Trail. There are actually 5 missions along the San Antonio River stretching south from the center of San Antonio. The famous Alamo, which is right downtown, is the first one. Next is Mission Concepcion. Unfortunately, it was undergoing restoration work so we could not go inside. Below is Mission San Jose. We have just stepped inside the walled mission and the church is behind Kristie. The missions were like a mini-walled city. I detailed more information about the missions in my post from October 2009 when we visited San Jose and Espada with our San Antonio friends, Ruth and Gavino. What a difference in the looks of the missions now compared to October when flowers were still blooming and everything was green. This cold wet winter has taken its toll here in San Antonio just as it has in the Rio Grande Valley.

Above, the entrance to the San Jose mission church. Below is an information board about the facade of the church. It used to have a fresco facade like on this board. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see the fresco design. Frescoes are made by applying different minerals (to obtain different colors) to the wet plaster as it is applied to the stone.

I love the corner above where the prickly pear cactus is growing on the wooden roof with the moss. Below is a close-up of the cactus and moss on the shake roof.

As we traveled down the Mission Trail, we came to the Espada aqueduct which Mike, Kristie and Doug are standing beside in the photo below. Farming was the main occupation of the mission communities in their quest to become self-sufficient. Crops included maize (corn), beans, chile, squash, melons, cotton, and sugar cane. Orchards produced apples, peaches, grapes and other fruits. Each mission had an acequia. This system of gravity-fed irrigation ditches brought water diverted from the river by means of a dam to the fields and orchards. The Espada acequia is the best preserved system. Espada Dam, completed in 1745, still diverts river water into an acequia madre (historically Piedras Creek) through Espada Aqueduct - the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the US. Floodgates controlled the water sent to the fields for irrigation. Farms in the area today still use this system.