Day 19 - Traveling to San Antonio, Remembering the Alamo, & An Early River Walk Mardi Gras

Today we traveled from El Paso, Texas to San Antonio (about an 8 hour drive and it is only halfway thru the state). While here we visited the Alamo. Our hotel is the Drury Plaza Hotel San Antonio Riverwalk, which, as the name implies, is adjacent to the famous San Antonio River Walk. The hotel gave out free drinks to guests between 5:30 and 7, of which we took full advantage. Below are the pics from today

We could see Mexico from I-10 as we drove east this morning near El Paso. No sign of a Mexican-purchased border wall.

The speed limit throughout west Texas was 80 mph, which we liked.

The sky looks pretty cool as we drove through west Texas.

As we arrived in San Antonio, we saw they were having a floating Mardi Gras parade on the River Walk. 

We rushed over to the Alamo, as it was closing soon. We got to run through it quickly. No photos allowed inside.

A stature of David Bowie... I mean James Bowie. I'm pointing to his big knife.

Shane posed with the statue of Davey Crockett.

We got back to the floating Mardi Gras parade as a boat of drag queens went by. See the video below.

Tonight, we will walk around the River Walk some more and get some dinner. Tomorrow, we are headed to New Orleans and more Mardi Gras fun I imagine.

Day 18 - Traveling Back East Via El Paso, Texas

Today was not a fun vacation day for Mark and Shane. It is Day 18 of our cross-country trip, and it was our first long drive toward the east. This was really the first leg of a long way back. It is a bit daunting. We left Palm Springs, Calif., this morning around 8 a.m. and we made it to El Paso, Texas, around 7 p.m. We drove through western California, the entire state of Arizona, the entire state of New Mexico and into Texas. It was about 10 long hours of driving, and we lost an hour by going east from Pacific time to Mountain time.

Today's route from Palm Springs to El Paso via Interstate 10.

There are some beautiful mountains and deserts we drove through today. I love the giant cacti driving through Arizona. We passed time by listening to music and to an audio book. Today we started David Sedaris's book, Theft by Finding, which is his diaries from 1977 to 2002. It is about 14 hour long, and we listened to more than 5 hours today. I does make the trip go faster.

Below are some of the scenery we got to see on our drive.  All these shots were taken from the car along the way today.

Just of a few of the countless large cacti in the desert along I-10 in Arizona.

The flat valley of the eastern part of Arizona has scenic mountains all around.

This was on the opposite side of the highway as the mountains shown above this photo. 

These rocky features were in Western New Mexico I think... it kind of runs together in my mind. 

One of the worst things about driving across the country is the pebbles hitting our windshield. Every so often we hear something hit the windshield and then we scan to see if there is damage that needs to be repaired. We already had to make one stop in Kansas on our way west. We had several scares today, but so far so good. Our car as a really expensive windshield and getting it replaced, which we already had to do once before this trip, is a royal pain. 

Another interesting thing we saw on our trip today were small brush fires along the highway in eastern Arizona. I could understand seeing one or maybe two, but we say six or seven small fires along the road, which made me wonder why there were so many separate fires all within several miles of each other. 

We stopped to eat fast food for breakfast and lunch and then checked into a Holiday Inn outside of El Paso and had dinner in their restaurant. To offset the fast food we did have salads for dinner. 

Tomorrow, we have more driving to do. The plan is to go deep into Texas and get to San Antonio tomorrow. which should take about 8 hours. Stay tuned.