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Published: November 9th 2009
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Front of the Alamo church.On monday night, Wayne took us for a look around the base where he works. Then we all went ten-pin bowling at the base. 51 lanes, not a bad size bowling centre, sports bar the works. Then we went out for tea after that. We went to a nice chinese buffet restaurant. The highlight of the night was Sophie eating a whole Octopus for $20 bucks. No one thought she would do it, but she did.
Tuesady , we said our good byes and hit the road. Thanks heaps to Wayne and Jill and the girls, we had an awesome week as they opened up their house to us, and made us feel very welcome.
Not far out of El Paso and we hit a border patrol in the middle of know where. Jill said they have one on all the main roads out of El Paso, I guess they are checking for illegal immergrants. So we drove as far as we could that day and ended up in a place called Junction, Texas. Funny how we left the desert surroundings of El Paso and by 300 miles away we had crossed that line and we had vegetation again.We had grass
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Check out that style!! everywhere, they were back mowing the side of the roads. Deer everywhere, I would have seen at least 6 dead ones on the side of the road. We lost an hour with going into central time so we were driving in the dark for the last hour or so and I saw even more dear right beside the road. A bit scarey when with ' The rolling turd' on behind, I can't stop in a hurry.
Wednesday, we drove into San Antonio and got a campground for the night. Had lunch and headed off into town. 1st stop was 'The Alamo', like many people we had heard of it but never really knew what it was famous for. Here goes, Texas used to be controlled by Mexico way back when. As America was being discovered and opened up to the new immergrants , they moved into Texas. After trying to take control of their own state, they had many battles with the Mexican army. In one of those battles the generals brother got killed by the rebels. So he decided personally to go up there and sort it out himself. Armed with 2000 troops they marched up from Mexico. The
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Museum in the Alamo. Alamo was a mission in its early days and then got fortified in the early 1800's by the spanish. 170 men spent weeks setting up for the impending battle. They knew they would be out numbered but where prepared to die for their state. Davie Crockett, famed frontiersman and congressman for Tenneesee, David Bowie, renowed knife fighter where amongst the men who took a stand. On febuary 23rd, 1836, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna caught the men by surprise and nearly ruined the whole party. So the battle started, heavily out numbered , they sent out runners to try and gain support from anywhere.On the 8th night, 30 more local men snuck into the Alamo to take up the fight. Legend has it that Colonel travis drew a line in the sand and said anyone who wants to stay and fight , step over the line, All but one did. It lasted for 13 days before the walls were finally breeched and a hand to hand fight didn't last very long. Everyone inside the Alamo had died except for a few women and children. Nowadays the main part is the church and the courtyard has been planted out and
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Inside the courtyard. tells of the history of the place. From there we walked across the road and started following the riverwalk, Kylie had read about. It was nothing like what we thought it would be. This is not walking along side a big river and looking into it. The river is a canal set up through the buildings and business's of the downtown area. The footpaths are right on the edge of it , with huge trees towering over the river . It really is an amazing sight. In the early 1900's the area used to flood all the time and the local business's wanted the river diverted. But an architect came up with the idea of flood gates basically to stop the water rising during floods and controlling the water level. It worked and its now their number two attraction behind the Alamo. We went home and had tea then went back down there to go on a riverboat cruise around the 2 miles of river. There a bars and restaurants all the way along it. Its still very warm here , 25 during the day and about 12 at night. The river is only 3 ft deep around most of
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The riverwalk. the downtown area and deeper when we went out into the main river part of it. They have been busy hanging up all these thousands of lights from the trees along the cruise. They will be turned on at thanksgiving and turned off after christmas. It will look incredible I bet, Had to stop for an ice cream before heading home for night.
Thursday , we packed up and drove about 4 hrs over to Houston. When we got there we read about the army guy in San Antonio that had shot 13 people and wounded 30 because he didn't want to go to war. Shit we were just there this morning. Found our campground, WOW Houston is a big city and were back to toll roads. We had a early tea then headed into town . Picked up our tickets at the will-call for Kenny Rogers with the Houston symphony orchestra. Funny my two were the only kids there, alot of people came early to have dinner before the show. Tori reckoned Kylie and I fitted right on in with all the old foggies there. LOL. As usual we were on the back wall and this time pretty high
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one of the cruise boats along the riverwalk. up. Its become a standing joke now!! In the 1st half the kids had to endure the syphony orchestra by themselves. They are a 100 piece orchestra , so it did sound pretty good but not to kids. Then Kenny hobbled on in , for the second half. He's definately showing his age, but then again he said he has 5 year old twin boys!!! He did a lot of talking to the audience and played shortened versions of alot of his songs. He said he has been singing for 5 decades now, he showed video of him in 1967 singing, what a laugh!!
When he sung the gambler he sung it to video of him in the gambler movie. His voice hasn't changed, just not as strong obviously. I thought it was awesome and someone i've always wanted to see.
Friday, This flu has finally caught up with all of us. I spent the day in bed with a fever, headaches, sore throat etc. I thought I was going to die, then Mrs Claridge tells me to harden up as she has had it for days and hasn't complained. So Josh slept on and off all day, Tori bought
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restaurants along the river. songs off I-tunes. Kylie got bored and watched CSI dvd's.
Saturday, still dont feel the flashest but alot better thean yesterday. So we drove out to the coast to Galveston. Its a long island along the Taxas coast. It got hit by Hurricane Ike this time last year. So although it was nice to walk around and have alook at it, its still in recovery mode. Building boarded up, A motel block right on the shore just closed up and looks abandoned and terrible. We walked along the beach as ' that always does you the world of good'. The historic area of town is all the 2 and 3 story buildings with the wrought iron balconies, some old houses were open to the public. When we stopped into one, they had just closed for the day.On the way back in , to our right were all these industrial factories. Oil I assume, as they drill it off shore somewhere here in Texas. It was huge.
Sunday, Today we headed north west of houston to the 'Texas Renaisance Festival' . I asked the guy at the campground about it and he hadn't even heard of it. I had found it
on the internet. So off we went not really knowing what we were going to find. What we found was a line of cars all heading to this place. The carparks were down long lines of trees and there were hundreds of cars there at 10am. This is a permanent festival that runs every weekend from summer to late november. They encourage people to come dressed up in costume as it enhances the experience for everyone. There were hundreds of people dressed up in medievil times costumes , it was hard to tell who was working there and who was visiting. Thats how far they had gone to get dressed up. Talk about Clevage!!!! they must have been great old days back then, there were women falling out of their tops everywhere. Shame they weren't good looking, most were large ladies. We watched four guys go through challenges on horseback , then joust against each other. That was cool to watch. We found the food quite different from most parks weve been to. Didn't see any hamburger places at all, instead turkey legs, meat on a stick etc. Keeping with the Medievil theme it was really good. Josh and I
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Houses being built along the shore at Galveston. had a go at throwing an axe at a target, I managed to make the handle stick in the target. Both kids had a go at the cross bow as well as the normal bow and arrows. There are hundreds of stalls selling all sorts of hand made crafts , costumes, swords, leather stuff, jewerley etc. It tried to rain in the afternoon, but we had seen and done everything had wanted to do by then , so it was good timing.
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kylie
non-member comment
im with the kids and their feelings about that concert im afraid!! tori, ruby said that turkey leg is as big as your head!! cant believe you ate two, must be why you are looking taller. xx