San Juan Mission...shall I tell the story behind the picture? Let's see. Oh yeah, I'm telling. Picture the scene, San Antonio, 4:00pm, walking back to the car after eating a rather dismal Mexican food dinner, already toured the Alamo, the kids are ready to go back to the motel and swim. We happen to walk by the Visitor Information Center, I love those places, I love the brochures, the glossy pictures, the maps of the cities. I love the thought of visiting all those interesting places, well, I get lured into the visitor center, because one of my goals was to visit one of the old Spanish missions while we were in San Antonio, they are literally 3, 8 and 11 miles from the Alamo. Well, I wasn't quite sure where I was going, so in my mind I forgot about it. But, lo and behold, the nice man at the visitor center gave me detailed directions and I determine we are heading that way. Bob is onboard and so is Tory, but not Abby. If you have ever argued with Abby you would remember it. Once she gets an idea in her head, she will not let it go. Well, she got the idea that if she complained, whined, begged, cried, yelled, or insulted she could get out of visiting this mission. The whole eight miles she did all of the above mentioned, plus shoving Tory, when Tory tells her, "Abby, just be quiet and let's see it." She even stooped to the level of making me sound like a raving lunatic.

Abby accuses, "Mom, why can't you just be normal? Why do we have to visit a bunch of stones?"

Tory defends, "Abby, this is normal, it's what parents do."

This, of course, leads to a shouting match and a shoving match in the middle seat of the van, because we have no backseat because we brought the bikes to ride around the campground. So, I can't even banish her to the backseat to whine, she has to do it from the middle seat of the van, right in my ear. But, Bob and I are indefatigable, we are going to see the mission. The closer we get, the more we realize that we aren't any longer in downtown San Antonio, but rather moving out to the barrios. We're talking barrios where nobody speaks English and they will strip your car in three minutes flat if left alone.

But, we shoulder on, stiff upper lip and all that. By this time of day it's 200 degrees in the sun and there are two lone Mesquite trees inside the mission walls. The mission is one of the most complete missions in that area, the outer walls are intact and in fact the church is still used today for services. It was so amazing to stand there and think that 400 years ago Spanish friars came and converted Indians who later helped to build the walls and the church we were looking at. The only jarring note...the Coke machine in one of the old Indian rooms, oh, and the JBL speakers in the corners of this 400 year old church.

Definitely worth all the heartache.

With both parents graduating college with a major in history did you really think our kids were going to go to San Antonio without visiting the Alamo? The day we visited it was about 150 degrees outside, August in Texas, go figure. There were a million people of all nationalities. I guess growing up in Texas I didn't realize what a big deal the history of the Alamo is to foreigners. The only other place I've heard such a dense collection of languages was in New York visiting the Statue of Liberty. What surprises everyone the first time they see the Alamo is its location. It is smack dab in the middle of San Antonio. Almost as if the city was built around this tourist attraction. We also toured the Riverwalk, not as amazing as I had imagined, it's basically a tourist trap with restaurants and shops. The Mexican food? Not so good actually, in fact, it was rather bland if you can believe that. The hot sauce was some of the hottest I've ever tasted, but the food actually had no spices whatsoever. Whowouldathunkit? Downtown San Antonio Mexican food restaurant, total dud. I even asked clerks working in stores, "Which is your favorite Mexican food restaurant?" Turns out they don't know good Mexican food when they taste it.

The Shenandoah Valley in Virginia has moved to second place behind New Braunfels in Texas. I now wish to retire to this "vacation" community. Of course, considering the fact that retirement is officially about 25 years away for us I guess I should keep my options open. Recently my family and I traveled to New Braunfels and "toobed" down the Comal River. Yes, everywhere you look they spelled tube "toob". The Comal is the shortest river in the world, look it up in the Guinness Book of World Records. It took us about two hours to tube down the river, going through three "chutes" where it was small rapids. At times it was so still that we had to push ourselves along with our arms, but the river was absolutely gorgeous. At times we could see the bottom of the river the water was so clear. At times the river was about a foot deep at other times I couldn't touch. The homes and condominiums along the banks made me wish for a real job so that we could visit this Edenic paradise more often. This was definitely our favorite activity.