A surprising Moorish church in a San Antonio fortress
by It was a first and I almost missed it! I almost didn’t go to see the San Antonio Mission Trail because of the sweltering heat. …
Category: Texas
Galveston thunderstorm and a “dead” Kindle–a sign of the apocalypse?
A fierce thunderstorm–well, “fierce” to my Southern California eyes and ears–swept up from the Gulf into Galveston and kept me awake. So I decided to …
Painted Ladies and hurricane survivors
Carpenters never have to look for work in Galveston. The island is still rebuilding from Hurricane Ike back in 2008 and, I suspect, after additional …
Remember when the Alamo was a department store?
Well, actually, the Alamo building was a warehouse for a general store in downtown San Antonio back in 1890. The long barracks (where the last …
New West. Old West. And Roy Rodgers’ saddle, too
If you enter the Briscoe Western Art Museum from the San Antonio’s Riverwalk, the first room on the right contains an interesting curated group of …
Canary Islanders, dueling plaques and the Alamo dead
Once upon a time about 300 years ago the Spanish king ordered 56 people to get on a boat in the Canary Islands off the …
The not-quite Japanese Tea Garden in San Antonio
On Google maps it reads: “Japanese Tea Garden”. But at the entrance to this unusual garden in San Antonio, the gate reads: “Entrance to the …
Who is the biggest border fence builder of them all? Not DT!
Note: this post should have appeared after the one about the El Paso missions. Once again on this slow journey across the U.S., I am …
Going to visit the German Texans
About the same time that my German ancestors arrived in Pennsylvania back in the 1860s-70s, another group of Germans refugees arrived in Texas Hill Country …
Being “Mam’d”, watching Cavaliers and other things about San Antonio
After driving over 1,100 miles and living for a couple of months in the desert with next-to-zero humidity (plus next-to-zero visibility during one formidable dust …
Flowery carriages, Lime scooters and pink boats in Texas
Instead of empty streets in the financial district on weekends after the brokers and bankers have gone home, downtown San Antonio is busy 7 days …
San Elizario Chapel and Billy the Kid live side-by-side in El Paso
If you live near a river you know that floods happen and destroy things. Add to that the ambitions of kings and the wars for …