Jan 16-19

San Antonio, Texas  (7,080 miles/11,328 kms.)

Friday morning was a short drive of about 75 miles from our previous night’s park(aka-Walmart). We had a relaxed start with a breakfast of sausage and eggs and arrived at Traveller’s World RV Resort about 3 miles south of downtown San Antonio about 12:30 pm. After setting up and having lunch we hopped on the bus around 3:30pm heading downtown for the night.

History lesson #1 – San Antonio was founded around a group of missions (5) started in the early 1700’s with 4 of them still active churches holding catholic mass. Spaniards from New Spain (Mexico) travelled here to set up and colonize in their Spanish tradition. At the time the Native Indians roamed the area and they brought them into these missions to convert them to Catholicism. They would be fully converted from their traditional customs, languages, food, dances and beliefs. They were taught Spanish for talking and Latin for worship. I guess as a pun, this was their “mission”!! These missions were for the most part self contained with nearby fruit orchards, ranches for raising livestock, etc..

Where we are parked, it is in the heart of the mission district which is basically an 8 mile park along the San Antonio river. The first mission was the Alamo (Mission San Antonio de Valero) in the downtown core, followed by Concepcion, San Jose, San Juan and Espada. We are 1 mile south of Concepcion and about 1 mile north of San Jose. The city has miles of bike and walking trails and we are right next door to the river trail system linking all this up. They have done a fantastic job in this respect.

Ok, back to Friday afternoon….after a 25 minute bus ride we are in the heart of downtown and immediately embarked on the river walk, one of the big attractions in San Antonio. History lesson #2 – The “river walk” stems from a solution to solve a problem back in the early 1900’s. With the river flowing right through the downtown core, erosion and flooding were a constant problem, so an architect at the time decided that a good solution would be to cement over the miles of aquifers and also develop hotels, restaurants, offices along the route. The cementing wasn’t finally approved until the 1940’s but further development didn’t really take off until the 60’s.Now it is a thriving tourist districts with markets, restaurants, hotels, clubs, etc.. stretching 8 miles. Many of the 8 miles are purely nice walking trails along the river. The interesting part is that all of this (except the high rise hotels) is 20 feet below the city streets.

On our initial walk, we found the San Fernando Cathedral in the Main Plaza. It was the first church that the city of San Antonio started building around. We arrived back at the RV around 8:30 that night.

Saturday, we decided to get the bikes out and tour along the paved (cement) trails along the river heading south to Mission-San Jose – called the “Queen of Missions”. (see pic)  Finally some tourist attractions that where free! All the missions are free. After seeing a short film and touring San Jose, we headed further south to San Juan. Much smaller in all respects, but interesting to see just the same. We had left around mid morning, so it was time to get back to Jazz as it was around 2 o’clock now for some lunch and some sun at the pool. We also had lots more to see in the area, so a bit of brochure reading and planning for Sunday was in order.

Sunday, our first plan was to visit the historic King William District. This was about 4 miles towards downtown on the riverside bike trails. We headed off around 9:30 and within less than a mile discovered that the bike/walk trail had been commandeered that morning for a ½ marathon. The alternate for us was the Mission Trail Parkway, which also landed us on some less than desirable biking roads for short distances. We eventually found the hub of the historic area and obtained some street walking tour maps. History Lesson #3 – King William District…. It is an area established around the turn of the 1900 century, primary by wealthy German immigrants. There are many grandeur homes in the area – see pics, but also a considerable sprinkling of so called cottages – which were much smaller and also more eclectic. In this area we also found and toured the Guenther House and grounds. This family founded and still own and operate the Pioneer/White Wing flours mills beside the house and elsewhere in Texas.

After touring the area for a couple of hours, we retreated back home, now able to use the river bike trail – 4 miles back. The cement trail is marked every 1/10 of a mile. We fried up some hot dogs and onions for lunch and took Jazz for a quick walk to the park. By 2:30 we were back on the bus to finish our “tourists” plans for San Antonio. First off, back in downtown, walk to see the Spanish Governor’s Palace. From the outside, it was a one storey adobe that wasn’t impressive, so we kept the $5 admission charge and headed to the Alamo. History lesson #4 – The battle at the Alamo goes to the root of Texan history – in short they lost the battle as they only had around 200 men to fight against an army of 2,000 Spaniards from New Spain (Mexico). It was a 13 day siege. A few weeks later a much large military was able to defeat the Mexican army, and Texas finally gained its independence. The battle at Alamo was in the spring of 1836. There are lots of history books on it if you want more details. The church (now a shrine) (see pic) and the stockades are all that remains from the original site.

Lastly, before finding a place for libations and dinner, we walked to La Villita – the city’s first artisan district dating back to the 1930’s. Once again, many stores were either not open or vacant. It was a nice looking area, just off the river walk, but sadly no one was there. It was late Sunday afternoon, so maybe that’s why. We went out for a steak dinner (after all we’re in Texas) and were back home to relieve Jazz by 8 pm.

Monday, was a morning to do some research and planning for the next few weeks as we head to south Texas tomorrow morning. Sunning at the pool was in order for the afternoon.

Talk to you soon from the Gulf of Mexico!

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 12-16, 2015

We arrived at Queen Mine RV Park in Bisbee Arizona before noon on Monday. Bisbee is approximately 10 miles away from the Mexican Border.

We had originally planned to leave Tombstone and arrive in Bisbee on Sunday, January 11^th however as we were getting ready to leave we discovered that we had a flat tire on the RV. Time to try out our CAA RV road assistance coverage. Within an hour we had an AAA service tech at our campsite. As the tires on our RV had not been touched since new, it proved to be somewhat of a challenge to remove the lug nuts on the chrome ring on the tire due to rust etc. Finally, the tire was removed, the spare put on and all was well again. By this time though it was close to 3 pm so we decided just to spend another night there and headed to Bisbee the next morning.

Here is a little history of Bisbee: In 1887, a reconnaissance detail of army scouts and calvarymen were sent to the Mule Mountains in search of renegade Apaches. What Lt John Rucker and a civilian tracker Jack Dunn found instead were signs of copper. The first mining claim was staked in what would later become the City of Bisbee. This claim along with a multitude of others sent mining prospectors scurrying to Mule Mountains in hopes of striking it rich. The city was named in honour of Judge DeWitt Bisbee from San Francisco who was a major financial backer of the mine. During this time miners from England brought their 2000 year mining experience to Bisbee. They also brought legends of little people known as “Tommy Knockers” who were said to warn miners of danger by knocking on rocks.

Bisbee was a rough and tumble mining camp and in Bisbee’s famed red-light district, Brewery Gulch boasted nearly 50 saloons and almost as many brothels. It was once considered the wildest street in North America. (See pic) Bisbee’s mines closed in the 70’s but Bisbee has entertained millions of visitors since. It is a National Registered Historic District that chronicles the Old West.

Today, it has transformed itself into a quirky, artsy town offering historic lodging, fine dining, museums, art galleries and antique shops.

Naturally, the first thing we did upon arriving in Bisbee was go for a tour of the Queen Mine which was only a couple of hundred feet away from our RV Camp thus it was very convenient. (see pic) We took an original mining train into the mine until we were 1500 feet inside. We had to wear Hard Hats, miners coats and miners lights. There is 143 miles of tunnels in the Queen Mine alone and over 2000 miles of tunnels in all of the mines in Bisbee. The miners life was very hard. At the start of their shift they were each issued 4 candles which was their only light source originally. Miners were paid anywhere up to 36 cents per hour depending on their job and they were able to double their wages if they were more productive by exceeding their daily quota. Originally, the miners had to push 1 ton carts of Ore out of the mine to be sent on to nearby town of Douglas for processing. Eventually, they used Mules to haul the ore out of the mines and mules could pull 4 carts as opposed to only one that people could push thus significantly increasing productivity.

Bisbee’s mines produced more than 8 billion pounds of copper as well as gold, silver and zinc. It was one of the most productive mining districts in the world from the late 1800’s until it’s closure in 1975.

After the mine tour, we took Jazz for a walk around town and checked out the funky streets, shops, etc. The whole town is built on the mountains so the streets are up and down all over the place. There are many sets of staircases all over the town to allow access to the higher streets.

The following morning we learned from the RV Park Manager that at 11:30 pm the night before, there had been 2 EMS vehicles in the park attending to a park resident who had been cleaning his gun while in his little Bolar type trailer and his gun fired as he was doing so. He shot himself in the hand and the bullet continued on through the wall of his trailer and entered through the wall of the RV beside him. The bullet went right through the bedroom of that RV and out the other side. Fortunately the occupants of that RV were already in bed so the bullet missed them and just damaged the 2 walls of their RV. These 2 RV’s were just across the small RV park from where we were parked – about 200 feet away.  Too close for comfort!!

That morning we walked through town without Jazz and were able to go into the many artsy type shops and we of course had to check out a couple of the saloons in town as well. On Brewery Gulch, was a saloon called the Brewery Saloon. In 1914 due to prohibition, this saloon was forced to close its doors. A Brokerage and Investment firm moved into the vacated premises of the saloon. This firm joined the New York Stock Exchange and had a board installed and a ticker tape sent from Manhatten. The original board is still in the building and is the only board ever used and affiliated with the NYSE in Arizona. In the late 80’s the Stock Exchange Saloon opened in the premises. (See pics) and we enjoyed a pint in the 100 plus year old surroundings. As it turned out, we could have brought Jazz with us as this saloon was dog friendly.

We left Bisbee in the morning of January 14^th and spent the next 2 days driving between 350 and 400 miles each day on our way to our next destination, San Antonio Texas where we will spend 4 days. To get there we drove through New Mexico in which we encountered very cold temperatures and actual snow flurries as we drove. We got out of there as fast as we could but the cold temps stayed with us into Texas.

Yesterday when we woke up in the parking lot of a Flying J Truck stop in Van Horn Texas, it was 27 degrees F, outside. This is the coldest temps we have encountered on our entire trip. This morning (Jan 16^th) it was 31 degrees F when we woke up in the Walmart parking lot in Kerrville Texas. (70 miles northwest of San Antonio)  Brrrrrr!!!

Off we go searching for warm climates in southern Texas. Have a great weekend everyone and we will squawk to you next week and let you know about our adventures in San Antonio.

 

Jan 8 – 10

 

We left Benson early Thursday morning heading south for about 10 miles reaching the Kartchner Caverns. Unfortunately when we went into the caverns, no purses, camera’s, cell phones, etc. were allowed to go. It was a fascinating tour inside a limestone cave that was only discovered back in 1974 but not open to the public until 1998. It is a living cave with over a 1/2 mile of walking trail. It has 3 air locks as you get into the caves to protect the environment and control the temperature and humidity at all times. The underground tour lasted 1 hour. Best to go to this website if you are interested in some of the sites we saw. http://azstateparks.com/Parks/KACA/index.html

We left the Caverns around 11 and headed about 25 miles further south to the town of Tombstone. Tombstone is a National Historical site, so it’s best to describe the town now as a museum. On Thursday afternoon we just hung out at the park oriented ourselves for the area and future destinations. The day was a wet drizzly day anyway with Friday and Saturday promising better weather.

A “short” history lesson to understand the town. It was founded back in 1879 by a silver prospector. Over a short couple of years many silver sites where found and the “boom” started going from a few hundred people in 1880 to 12-15,000 during the mid 80’s. Along with the silver boom came miners, saloons (110 at it’s peak), gambling, prostitutes and of course outlaws! Silver miners in the day could make $3/twelve hour day. Prostitutes could make $30 in an evening! It has been named the “Town too tough to die” which comes from the fact that half the downtown burned down not once but twice between late 1881 and May 1882. (6 months apart) Both times, it was rebuilt bigger and better.

On Friday we took the parks shuttle into town (less than 1 mile) and began with a Stagecoach tour. Then we headed over to the infamous Birdcage Theatre that holds lots of history which I won’t get into. It was basically a place for theatre with lots of gambling but it was also a popular brothel. See the “birdcages” were local ladies would pull the drapes and “entertain” guests for the night. See pic. We then headed over to the Courthouse for some more history of the area including Chief’s Cochise and Geronimo. Lots of historic artifacts everywhere you went in town. We also toured the Epitaph – the towns newspaper that is still operating. Back home later in the afternoon for a quiet Friday evening.

Saturday’s plan was to go into town mid afternoon, have diner and spend the evening (last shuttle pickup is 9 pm). I met Mary in the morning who is the one in the pic below walking her pony and donkey – with a Colt 45 in her holster! She is quite committed to them since she has to make 2 trips to/from Illinois to bring her RV here and then the horse trailer. (3 days driving each way)

We headed in around 2 pm with the main goal for the day being to see a reenactment of the Gunfight at the OK Corral, some shopping and saloon hopping.  Prior to the gunfight, there was an interesting  25 minute historama. Once into the corral, they had many more artifacts to look at. We also dressed up in some  “period” costume while in town and get a picture taken. (see pic) With that and the shopping out of the way, it was time to check some of the saloons. We decided to go further down the main street (Allen)away from the touristy area and checkout a couple of “local” ones. Crazy Annies was first. Small and quaint and very friendly. We met Crazy Annie and her husband Smokin Joe! An older couple who use to live in Ohio many years ago and have good friends in Georgetown! After some great conversation, we headed over to Johnny Ringo’s (a famous outlaw) and met some more locals and had a homemade pizza for dinner. Back in town, we had to check out the country band at Nosey Kate’s saloon. Nosey Kate was the first prostitute in Tombstone who also started the first brothel. She was also Doc Holliday’s girlfriend for a long time.

That’s it from Tombstone! Sunday morning we’re heading further south toward the Mexican border to stay in Bisbee, AZ.

 

Jan 5 -Jan 8

After leaving El Cajon(San Diego) area on Monday morning we finally started to headed east and leave the West coast behind. Shortly enroute we began to climb elevation, the wind picked up and still some lingering snow along the side of the road shielded in shade by rock. Soon after with the wind still blowing, gripping the wheel with both hands, large signs displayed – “Warning-Strong Winds for the next 45 miles” . At least they warned me and continued as we counted down the miles. Luckily we only went through about 15-20 miles of this. After heading through a Border patrol checkpoint (which we have seen several of) a strapping noise from outside the ring began, so we pulled off quickly as I though it was the awning having issues after all the wind we experienced. It turned out that the trim around the side door had come out of it’s track so we had to push it back in.

Back on the road, and still in California we started passing through a desert area that looked like the Sahara – sand, sand and more sand(see pic). In this area there were many RV’s pulled off and parked randomly in the desert so they could play on the off road machines. That would be fun.

We pulled into our camp for the night in Gila Bend, after losing 1 hour due to time zone change around 3:30 pm. No wind and 73 deg weather-ahhhh! We took in the rays for a while and once the sun was down, 6 loads of laundry and 2 Breaking Bad episodes later, we hit the sack.

Wednesday morning we woke to another sunny and eventually warm morning. The temperature swings in the desert are quite dramatic going from 75 during the day to near freezing at night.

We arrived in Benson AZ around 1. The park we stayed at have there own observatory (free), so we signed up for the evening session. We grabbed some lunch and headed over the pool and spa for a couple of hours of R & R. After an early dinner we headed to the astronomy dome (see pic)and enjoyed a 1 hour hands on presentation. The park has two amateur astronomers who take turns. There was 14 of us in the dome, and the presenter talked a lot bout planets, moons and stars. The dome has a university grade telescope in it hooked up to a computer/GPS tracking system.  He would hone in on one then discuss it and they we each took a turn looking into the scope. Fun and interesting!

The next morning was housework then off to the pool for some more rays. I took a bike ride around town then caught up with Kathy at the pool. It was a great park with putting green and driving nets (although I didn’t use them).

Next stop – the Wild West!!! –

Stay tuned.

 

Dec 29 – Jan 5

Monday morning we packed up the rig, filled up with gas and propane and trekked about 135 miles down to El Cajon to spend a week with our son Bryn and his girlfriend Melissa. I must say that the continued drop in gas prices is nice and has been a blessing as it helps offset the higher CAD/US exchange rate. (1.20 at time of writing today).

We left the desert behind, at least we thought so, but discovered southern California is pretty dry and baron as well. El Cajon is about 25 miles east of San Diego and about the same distance from the Mexican border. We arrived around 12:30 expecting them to be waiting for us as they landed around 10:30 am. By the time we had set up, they had arrived after getting lost a bit and stopping for lunch. Bryn was happy with the warm weather that day and quickly put on shorts and flip flops. After a visit we headed out to stock up on groceries for the week, although several meals, we would eat out. That evening the weather turned cool (mid 50’s daytime temp) as it would stay for the next several days.

Tuesday was a planned quite day for the travelers to recoup from a 5.5 hr flight and 3 time zones. We checked out El Cajon and went back home for some board games later in the afternoon. Scrabble and Rummikub were the games of choice. It rained that evening and quite hard at times and with our guests sleeping in the front “suite”, their heads were about 3’ from the roof, it was a little louder at times.

Wednesday was a planned golf day for Bryn and I, so we booked a tee off at 10 am. The next morning we woke up to reports of snow only a few miles away and only 45 miles north were we had come through on Monday had 18” of snow – yes inches. We called the course to see if they were open and they hadn’t received snow, so we headed off with the temp at about 45 deg. The first 9 holes were cold and then the sun came out to warm us a bit. All in all it was fun to be out golfing on the morning of New Years Eve! Meanwhile after the girls dropped us off they headed off to a nearby Outlet Mall in Alpine.

We had decided earlier in the day to celebrate New Years with the “east”, so our ball drop was at 9 pm. Meanwhile, we went out to a nearby Italian restaurant and had a nice meal that was VERY filling as only the Italians know how to serve food. We were still full the next morning.

New Years Day – headed off around 9:30 am for San Diego Zoo. The temp was in the low 50’s but sunny and dry so it was quite pleasant. By the time we left at around 4pm we had pretty well covered the Zoo. It is a pretty old Zoo and ranked as one of the world’s best. Being older, it is much more compact that the Toronto Zoo. One of the highlights, was seeing a baby gorilla that had been born only 6 days before. Laying on it’s mother’s stomach with the mother’s hand on it. (see pic) With a zoom lense, needless to say, I took my share of pictures, but I widdled it down to only a few for the blog. Back home to relieve Jazz and have a nice steak dinner for the group of tired walkers.

The plan for Friday was to tour the coast a bit so we did a bit of a loop heading north in the interior to Escondido then heading west over to Carlsbad CA. The coast drive was only about 25 miles but it showed a lot of wealth and beauty. By the time we arrived in Carlsbad it was time for a short beach walk and a coffee and snack. We headed further down the coast arriving at Del Mar – time for lunch outdoors in the sun which was nice. After a short walk around Del Mar, next stop was Torrey Pines – a famous golf course on the PGA tour. A beauty, right on the coast! We checked out the pro shop for some TP swag and took a few pictures outside then continued on the La Jolla which was almost next door. La Jolla has a massively wide and long beach and with the nice weather and many people still on holidays, it was fairly busy. After a walk around, we headed home once again to relieve Jazz. She was a good sport all week! Tonight was Bryn and Melissa’s turn to make dinner, so we had our popular chicken and leek pasta. Good comfort food. More games that evening.

Saturday, Bryn and I had another golf game booked at Mt. Woodson. This is an older course up in the mountains. You had to have a cart to play this one as it had multiple levels but the views and the holes were fantastic. Meanwhile the girls had booked a spa session. We reconnected mid afternoon as our round was a slow one, but thoroughly enjoyable. Back to the RV for a quick change then into the San Diego Seaport Village for dinner. It’s about a 25 min drive. Games again that night. Rummikub was becoming popular.

Sunday was our final full day together, so it was decided a big hike in the morning was in order – with Jazz of course! The weather was starting to get really nice by this point with us leaving in shorts and T-shirts to hike up Iron Mountain about 15 min away. We didn’t go all the way to the summit which was about 3 miles but made it up to about ½ way which took close to an hour. The trail was quite busy.(see pic). Sunday afternoon was a day to relax by the pool and spa and take in the last rays from the “California sun”. Dinner was BBQ chicken and ribs along with a salad including pomegranates. Mel had to go to the internet to learn how to get the berry’s out of this fruit. Boy there were a lot!

Monday morning we were up by 7:30 as they had an 11:50 flight back to TO. As usual the week always goes quick when you’re on vacation. They headed off to the airport by 8:45 and we packed up the rig and hit the road by around 10 am. We left California after being in the state since November 18^th. Destination for the night was Gila Bend Arizona. More desert coming up!!!

See ya!