Deep in the HEART of Texas!

We drove south until we were about an hour outside of San Antonio. We had dinner and found a spot to make camp and sleep for a couple hours. The next morning we headed into the city. San Antonio is beautiful. It's clean and lush and historic. Had it not been over 100 degrees we would have loved to walk around and explore more!

We had a great breakfast at the Gunther House which was the home of the Gunther family who started the Pioneer Flour company in San Antonio in 1852. The home is now a museum and restaurant where Rachael claims she had the best pancakes of her life. 

We then drove downtown to see the Alamo. It was really interesting, but we wished it was curated a bit better to tell the story. 

Still it was cool to see the mission and the grounds where the battle took place. From what I could gather, in 1836 the Mexican army attacked the Alamo Mission which was being used as a base for the Texan defenders. The Texans lost but the cruelty of the Mexicans made the battle a motivator for revenge; hence the phrase: "remember the Alamo!"

After the Alamo we walked around a bit and sifted through a huge antique store before retreating to the car for a little AC. 

Around midday we went to visit with my old friend, Mary! We got to see her home and meet her awesome husband and adorable baby, Chloe. Chloe was smiling and laughing the whole time we were there. It was so nice to catch up with one of my best childhood friends. I'm hoping I'll get to come back to San Antonio and visit with her and her family and explore the city a bit more!

After San Antonio we headed north to Austin. We got sucked into a wine tasting when we saw a giant billboard for "WINE AND VIEWS!"  As it turns out the tasting was at the "Arc de Texas":

The wine was great, the views were great, and the guitar player was great. Best of all, it was breezy up there so we got a little relief from the heat. 

We had just been to Austin in October so we didn't have a pressing agenda. We had breakfast at our favorite taco stand, El Chilito! 

After breakfast we went to the city-wide yard sale. The yard sale was essentially a flea market, but we enjoyed poking around and even found a few deals! We decided that the 105 degree heat was more than we could stand to walk around the city too much so we got in the car to make tracks towards New Orleans!