Thanksgiving 2011

Luis and I enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with Luis' cousin Waleska and her husband Ellis who live in Humble, Texas, near Houston. There was food for an army and all of it delicious. There was even coquito to top off the evening. We spent the night in downtown Houston and walked around the city the next day.































Later that day we drove to Galveston Island and spent the rest of the holiday weekend at the San Luis Resort (in honor of Luis of course). The hotel was decked out for Christmas to such an extent that it was an all out assault rather than a feast for the senses. Galveston is very different from the other coastal islands that we have visited. There is a lovely downtown and there are many neighborhoods filled with Victorian homes. The ocean isn't that pretty so it's a good thing the buildings are.

Japanese Tea Garden

I've taken many visitors to the Japanese Tea Garden in Brackenridge Park since moving to San Antonio. Luis went for the first time last month and was as impressed as I was the first time I saw it. The Garden was built about 100 years ago out of a former quarry. A Japanese gardener designed and maintained it. He and his family lived there until World War II when all things Japanese fell out of favor. His family was evicted and the city renamed it the Chinese Tea Garden. Cooler heads prevailed after the war and it is the Japanese Tea Garden once again. The family, however, never returned.

Birding and fishing on South Padre Island

Port Isabel

South Padre Island

The second half of our south Texas vacation was spent on South Padre Island which is a beautiful island with wide sandy beaches and blue ocean. We could see the sunrise from our room.

Quinta Mazatlan

Luis and I took a well deserved vacation the week of Labor Day and headed to south Texas. We stayed the first two nights in a bed and breakfast that is adjacent to a Santa Ana National Wildlife Preserve. The inn was charming with a courtyard filled with hummingbirds but the service could only be described as obtrusive. We are not B&B people.

The preserve was filled with birds that can't be seen anywhere but south Texas: chachalacas, green jays, olive sparrows, etc. We saw them all. The area is also home to the nine sites of the World Birding Center because Texas is the world. We went to the sites at Quinta Mazatlan and Estero Llano Grande State Park. Quinta Mazatlan is a Spanish style adobe house that was built for a rich Texan in 1935 that has been turned into a tourist attraction. It is beautiful and the surrounding garden was filled with birds.

Keira in the Alamo City

In late July, my eldest brother's eldest child, Keira, left a hot summer in Virginia to spend an even hotter week here in south central Texas. Of course we went to the Alamo. First we saw an IMAX movie about the Alamo and how it stands for freedom. I guess it stands for freedom if you define freedom as moving to a foreign country then claiming it for yourself when you don't like the government. It certainly explains Texas if that's how they define it here. Then, for the first time since moving here, I took a visitor inside the Alamo instead of just driving slowly past it. The Alamo is crowded every daylight hour of every day of every week. Keira and I visited on a mid-afternoon on Friday when the temperature was at or around 105 degrees. Freedom is hot.




















The next day we went to Driftwood, Texas where the most excellent barbecue joint, The Salt Lick, is. They wait on you at your table and allow both silverware and sauce so it's my current favorite Texas barbecue place.



















Afterwards we went to Austin and shopped on South Congress with the hipsters and toured the capital with the tourists.

Enchanted Rock, Fredericksburg, Texas

Fiesta

Every year in April, San Antonio shuts down for ten days for a series of parades and parties. It's called Fiesta and we had hoped to sample more of it than we did. As it is, we only made it to Oyster Fest where Luis and Stephanie went through three buckets of oysters that had been grilled in their shells over a fire. I tried one but thought they seemed a little overrated. As you can see, Luis was quite a shucker that day.