San Antonio

They call it the Venice of the Americas, and it is one of the finest places I've ever visited. Today we made the short trip from Austin to San Antonio and on arrival immediately set out for the riverwalk.

The riverwalk is lined by bars and resturants and stretches out for miles. The resturants serve the nicest Texan and Mexican food ever. Ever.

Also today: we remembered the Alamo. Site of a desisive battle in the fight for Texas Independence in 1836. The building itself was constructed from 1718-1724 as a mission. A garrison of 900 Texans retreated to the Alamo in February 1836 as the forces of Santa Anna advanced. Outnumbered three to one the Alamo fell and Santa Anna advanced to San Jacinto, where he ultimately lost and Texas decleared its independence.

Tomorrow we make the long drive from San Antonio to El Paso and Juarez across the border in Mexico. A distance of 552 miles, the trip will take at least 8 hours. It's still hot hot hot here so I'm going to go have a swim. For your information and in the interests of providing an acurate record I have included a photo of the motel pool. The temperature here reached 92-f (33c)

In the oval office...

Not the real Oval Office, but an exact replica at the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library in Austin.

Also in Austin:

The State Capitol building.

We then went out to the 6th Street entertainment district in the evening. Austin has a really cool collection of bars down 6th Street.

Short drive through to San Antonio this morning, going to see the Alamo and enjoy the best Texan and Mexican food in the world!

Lone Star City

Brazos Bend state park yesterday.

Cruising down the freeway in my fast fast car. The buildings in the background is the Galleria district of Houston, where we went to a big mall. Said mall contained ice-skating rink and 500+ shops.

At Galveston Island this morning, the farthest east point of this trip.

Oil tankers lining up to get into the Houston Ship Channel. This is the busiest port in the United States for international freight.

Me with the Saturn 5 rocket which blasted the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, now stored at Rocket Park, part of the Johnson Space Center.

The flight deck of a space shuttle.

The San Jacinto Monument, at the site of the San Jacinto battleground where Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836. The monument is 177.7m tall, a full 8m taller than the Washington monument. Go Texas!

Tomorrow we're off to Austin to see the capitol of Texas.

In other news, Dairy Queen has just released their best blizzard ever. It contains vanilla ice cream and reece's peanut butter cups. Does it get any better than this?

Dallas to Houston

Zig-zagged down from Dallas to Houston, visiting the Dr Pepper Musuem in Waco, and then going east on US-84 to Anderson County so that Daniel could get a photo in front of the sign, and then south on I-45 into Houston.

Hit a bit of a hickup leaving Dallas when an 18 wheeler flipped over about half a mile ahead of us, forcing us to do a u-turn on the freeway and drive across the median strip (with police approval!!)

On the way down I-45 we stopped in Huntsville and went to the Texas State Prisons Musuem.

"Ol' Sparkey", the electric chair of Texas, where 361 men were executed between the 1920s and the 1970s.