Connie and I had not been to San Antonio since the 1990s. We left on Friday, March 28^th.   I remember that we got kind of a late start as we had stopped at Whataburger to get something for breakfast and it was about 10 that morning when we got on the road. The reason I remember it so well was that someone that Connie did not care for came in while we were eating and it just upset her. It was about 12:30 when we got to Austin and finally got her to forget about it.  We stop at a sandwich place called Jimmy John and it was very good. After they opened one near us a year later we hardly ever went.

I was not used to all the traffic in San Antonio and the hotel I had booked was right neat a big overpass with a lot of traffic. Since the was during lent after we got settled we decide to look for a place to eat. Awe did not see anything around the hotel but we found a Luby’s cafeteria about 10 miles away. We put the address in our NUVI and took off. The traffic was very bad but we eventually made it there and got some fish.  What was funny was when we pulled back into the hotel parking lot we saw an Applebees just across the street.

The next morning was special because we were going to a town Castroville (“little Alsace”) which is about 25 miles west of San  Antonio. The reason that the trip to Castroville was special was that it was settled by people from the French region of Alsace-Lorraine. This area in western France was on the German border and over the years it has been part of German or part of France depending on the time in history.  

You can read more about the history of Castroville on the internet. We had to stop at one of the bakeries there and it was wonderful. They have houses that resemble the ones in Alsace France in the 1850s. What we found interesting is they still have close ties to Alsace in that people from there come over every couple of years to keep those houses updated and in good shape. We toured a couple of them and there is a lot of history there. I think Connie enjoyed it knowing that her great-grandmother was from that region.  We also visited the Catholic church which was built about that time. It is a small place so we were done touring a little after noon. We then took off for the San Marcos outlet mall which is between San Antonio and Austin. On the way, my phone charger in the car went out so we stopped at a Best Buy and bought a new one.

After some more sightseeing, we decided to stop and have lunch. Connie spotted this Mexican food restaurant called  Mamacita Mexican Restaurant. So we stopped there and had lunch. I thought it was ok but Connie fell in love with it and thought it was the best Mexican food she had ever had. After that, we decide to g back to the hotel and find a church so we could go to mass that night.

The church we found was very close to us there were about 10 catholic parishes within10 to 15 minutes of the hotel The one we chose was Saint Anthony de Padua which was probably the closest.  While I do not know much about St. Antony de Padua, I did read that he was one of the most quickly canonized saints. He was canonized in less than a year.He lived from1196 to 1231. The red cae to the right is Connie and mine.

The service at the church that Saturday evening was wonderful. It was a very diverse crowd and I remember the priest gave a wonderful homily. Connie enjoy him as he had this Irish brogue and was actually from Ireland. He was leaving the next day to go back to Ireland for a visit. I have no idea while I remember this but we ended up going to a grocery store after mass. I am not sure why but Connie needed something.

 We slept in on Sunday morning getting a late start after having breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast was included but I did not find it to be very good. But it was good enough.

So we had a late start as this Sunday we were headed to Fredericksburg. The main reason we were going was for the history of the town and to see the Nimitz Museum. It was about Admiral Nimitz and the Pacific war in WWII. Admiral Nimitz was from Fredericksburg. While we found the museum very interesting, the rest of Fredericksburg was just ok. We drove around the town and then headed back to San Antonio. On the way back we stopped at this little gift center just outside of town and bought some of their homemade jams to give to friends when we returned.

Monday morning we started home, we bought had found driving IH 35 on the way down to be very stressful, so we decided to take the back roads home. I am glad we did as we took highway 287 almost to Dallas. The scenery was wonderful and we got to see some nice small towns such as Marble Falls. We did stop at a fast food place just before we got off highway 287 and I left my cane there. It was one I liked but I did not discover it until we got home and I was not going to drive an hour and a half to get it. I ended up ordering 3 canes just like that one from Amazon. I keep one in the car, one to use around the house and a spare in case I lose one of them. But I have not lost one since 2014.