Day 20 – July 20^th 2016 – Ozona, TX to San Antonio, TX

Left hotel.  The roads where flat for many miles.  No hills in the distance.  Headed east.  The further we drove the more vegetation and rolling hills we saw. We started following the river.  Went thru several small towns.  First town we liked was Kerrville.  Took pictures.  Saw armadillo road kill. Passed thru Comfort, pretty town. Stopped in Boerne for lunch.  The further we went the higher the heat and humidity became. Arrived San Antonio to more heat and more HUMIDITY.  Went to post office and had no mail.  Saw the Alamo, The Lone Star and the Sunken Garden all in 100 degree heat.  We are staying at the St Anthony Hotel.  We don’t know our mileage, they took our car.  We will add tomorrow.  Mileage – 237.5

 

Left the hotel and it looked just like it did on the other side of Ozona, flat.  There were still some cactus by the road but we were seeing some more vegetation.  Passed thru several small towns.  In Junction we saw the “Holt Smith St”.  Yes, we took a picture.  Saw more old motels, gun and ammo shops, tree stands and some old buildings.  Then we started to see rolling hills. We stopped by the road at an overlook and Susan jumped out and picked up more rocks for bible school.  Then we started following the Guadalupe River.   We enjoyed passing thru several pretty towns with old buildings and parks, and stopped in Boerne for lunch at Dienger Trading Company.

Then we headed into San Antonio.  You could tell we got into a big city as traffic got really bad.  The heat and humidity also got worse.  We arrived at the hotel and I went to check in.   It is the Beverly Hillbillies coming to town.   Remember this is a 5 Star hotel.  I got looks walking in in my shorts, but once they saw I had the certificate they treated me nicely.  Parking, valet only.  I came out to see Susan and Pam laughing.  What’s so funny???  Susan and Pam said they could see the valets going “I’m not taking them, you take them”, “look at the van, have they ever washed it”.  The losing valet came to the window to talk to us and we could imagine what he thought when he looked in and saw the car crammed full of stuff.  His head must have been spinning thinking he had to take all of that in. When I came back to the car we all decided to go ahead to the sights and told them we would park it later.   Boy were they relieved.  I am sure they were hoping we would come back during the next shift.

As we tried to make our way around town we ended up driving back by the hotel and saw the valets standing beside the road.  The valets probably thought the hillbillies were lost.   We then drove down to the old post office where there was NO parking.  How do you get your mail here?  We finally parked in a lot for the Alamo.   We walked to the post office to see if we had received any mail.  We had to go through security and metal detectors to get in.  Pam did not set them off.  Alas, we had no mail but enjoyed talking to George about our trip.  We will call in the morning to see if mail has arrived for us.  After the post office disappointment we headed to the Alamo where we began to melt.  We thought we might do the river ride but I decided it was too hot, so instead I took us to the sunken garden where it was even hotter.  The garden was the sunken city that Dandy had seen.  I am sure he wouldn’t have gone there if it were this hot when he was here.   We walked through part of it hoping it would be cooler at the waterfall.   Not only was it not cooler, but we got even hotter with all of the steps.  It was beautiful and we would like to have stayed longer, but we had melted even more.  We then headed to see the Lone Star Brewery that he had seen.  It is now an art museum.  We didn’t get out of the car.  It was hot enough inside.  We tried to visit a few other areas but they didn’t seem interesting from the car and we were too hot to get out.  We headed back to the hotel, but before we did tried to organize our mess in the car to limit what had to be brought in.  See typically we’ve been getting to the hotel and taking out all coolers, bags,…  Not tonight.

So we drove up and the same valets were there.  We told them about our journey and they were very helpful.  Off to our room.  Gian, helped us to the room with our luggage.  He is from the Philippines and plans to drive the islands with his sister next year.  He loved our stories and we would love to hear his.  Oh, the room is nice.  We have a bedroom, living area, butler’s pantry and bathroom.    There are even 2 bathrobes.  Pam put one on and wanted to eat some of her yogurt but didn’t have a spoon.  She had to eat it with her finger while wearing the robe.  The lap of luxury.   We worked on the blog and then got ready to head to the river walk.  Why did we choose the St Anthony?  2 reasons.   First – I was here back in November and got a free hotel night to use within a year and #2, this hotel was around when granddad came thru.  The hotel is full of history and has had MANY famous people stay here.  It  was the first hotel in the world to be air-conditioned (I know why, so people didn’t melt) and had fire proof rooms.  The hotel allowed for patrons to park in the garage and get gas, take the back elevator up to their room to get refreshed before making their grand entrance into the lobby.  I just felt we needed to stay at a historic place along our journey.

The river walk was about 2.5 blocks away and we got there when the sun had set but it was still dusk.  We caught the boat for the ride on the river and that lasted about 30 minutes.   Then we found a nice restaurant where we could eat and had a wonderful dinner.  We ate on the river walk but had to eat inside because we were still melting.  Headed back to the hotel to work on the blog, to do the reading of the book, and to chill before we crashed.  The reading of the book is reading our book on Dandy’s trip to see what he did for the days we are going to travel.