San Antonio, Texas - November 13 - 18, 2007

The drive down to San Antonio was interesting. While George loved the Ozarks and being able to use the "Jake Brake" going down the mountains, Katherine spent a great deal of time closing her eyes and praying. Mountains & bridges are not favorites for her! Grateful to be out of the mountains, Oklahoma, nice & flat, was a great place to spend the night en route to Texas. We camped at a really nice KOA in Checotah. Further south also meant warmer weather. It was wonderful! We got in early enough that we were able to enjoy the nice weather. However, we woke up to rain for the first time on our trip and boy, when it rains in Oklahoma, it really rains. This was our first time driving the motorhome in hard rain. George seemed okay with it and again...Katherine spent a lot of time with eyes closed & saying prayers. We spent Monday, Nov. 12th at the Waco KOA. Now the weather was in the 80's and we were told to be careful with Bailey and the fire ants. Oh great! Just what we needed! Luckily, Bailey got into the burrs and not the fire ants.

We arrived at the San Antonio KOA early on Tuesday, Nov. 13th. It was about 85 degrees and lovely! We had camped at this KOA with the kids & our travel trailer in 1993 and were glad to find that it was still a nice place to camp. Thanks to Bailey's need to meet everyone, it didn't take long to meet most of the other campers! After the long trip down, it sure felt good to relax in the hot tub that evening.

On Wednesday, we took the bus into the city. It was another 85-degree day! Even though we had been there before, George insisted we go to the Alamo - it's one of his favorite spots. After that, we walked along the River Walk. It really hadn't changed much from when we were there in 1993.

One of the officers Katherine worked with, Micheal Johnson, had taken a leave of absence from the police department to join the Air Force Reserves and was graduating at Lackland Air Force Base on Nov. 16th. Since we were in San Antonio, we decided to attend his graduation. On Thursday, we went to the base to get registered and attend the Coin Ceremony. Three other officers from Hopkins PD came down for the graduation and it was nice to have lunch with them on Thursday before the Coin Ceremony. Friday, the 16th, was graduation day for Micheal. WoW...there were sure a lot of people graduating that day! It was real interesting to be there and to be able to have Michael give us a quick tour of his barracks.

Saturday, we decided we toured the missions along the Mission Trail. Since they're considered national parks, Bailey came with on this sightseeing outing. Mission San Jose looked like it was the biggest of the 4 we visited. When we drove by the San Jose Burial Park (different name for a cemetery, don't you think??), people were celebrating and having picnics right next to the grave sites. It seemed strange to us, but they really do go all out in celebrating the Day of the Dead down here. It was amazing! We've never seen a cemetery so decorated up before! The flowers at Mission Espada were absolutely beautiful!


We left on Sunday to head home (and cold weather) for the holidays. We dropped the motorhome off in Bastrop, Texas at a friend of a friend's home. Joanne has 15 acres and offered the space for storing our motorhome while we're in Minnesota for the holidays. We started the 1200-mile trek home in the car and arrived safely in Eden Prairie on Tuesday night. Shortly after getting home, we were greeted with lots of snow and cold weather! We're looking forward to January and our return to Texas to pick up our motorhome and continue the adventure!