Blogs from San Antonio, Texas, United States, North America - page 6

One of our last acts before leaving FLA was lunch with Paul Ratliff. It was good to see him and talk about old times. You never know, we may see him again soon. After a one night stay we made it out of Louisiana, but just barely . They closed US 10 that night after we passed as the Sabine River crested over the highway on the Texas border. Michelle got a quick shot of the Welcome Center as we passed by, the next day the whole thing was under water. In Houston we had a whirled-wind two day visit that left us completely worn out. After the four hour drive we set up camp, took showers and left for Linda Carroll's house. We visited for a short while, went off to have some good Mexican ... read more

Geo: 29.4245, -98.4946We started this road trip through the U.S hoping to explore both the loud, boisterous, and somewhat biased pride that Americans have in their own country, and the eccentricities that seem to stir the whole drink. We haven't been disappointed. Even the term 'Americans' seems to have been hijacked (everyone living in North and South America are technically 'Americans') by a population that genuinely struggles to understand why everyone wouldn't want to be a U.S. American and generally views eccentricity as a needed flamboyant colouring in life (how else do you explain Las Vegas- an elaborate adult playground in the middle of the desert??). We've seen examples all through the country, but San Antonio has offered up a particular sampling of extremes. First up is the Alamo which is arguably the site of the ... read more

Bonjour à tous. Fort Alamo est en fait l'ancien nom de San Antonio. Le trouve que ça sonne mieux et c'est surtout plus connu. Ce matin seulement 23° à Laredo, c'est comme une petite fraicheur, après le 40 d'hier après midi. J'ai seulement 260 km à faire, et ce n'est que de l'autoroute, je ne cherche pas d'autres routes, car je suis toujours dans cette région, qui est en blanc sur ma carte. Aujourd'hui ce sont des ranchs, il y a régulièrement des entrées avec le nom du ranch. Mais je ne vois pratiquement pas de troupeaux, conséquents. Au quarantième km, une douane, un contrôle de tous les véhicules et des passagers. Là ils n'ont pas le sourire au bord des lèvres. Équipement militaire, les chiens renifleurs, la totale. Ce doit pour les clandestins et la ... read more

I'm staying at the St Anthony in San Antonio for a Board meeting. This hotel is a soon to be Starwoods property and we are in their "soft" opening period. It's sure interesting being in a hotel that is still under construction. You can see the old "charm" well worn out charm and the new "cool" features. They've still got a lot to get finished but I can see the final product will be nice. Now I'm hoping the board meeting will finish up early tomorrow so I can go out and visit a couple of sites from my granddad's 1922 trip (www.1922coast2coast.com). If I can get away I will blog about them on that site. Who knows. BUT, I do enjoy being on an expense account and getting to expense the group meals since I'm ... read more

Geo: 29.4245, -98.4946Spent a lazy morning at the hotel. It's nice to sleep late and not worry about being much of anywhere on time. We walked around the hotel a little bit and saw the tall pine trees up close. It was a fairly pleasant walk although we were very close to the congestion of the highway--just a couple of buildings and blocks away.When we were ready to leave the hotel, we found the tire pressure light on in the car. As it turned out, there was a Discount Tire right across the street from the hotel. We pulled into their quick serve lane and had the tires checked right away. The attendant topped up the air in one, but did not see any nail or anything else that looked like a problem. We'll just have ... read more