An Eclectic Day...

I guess we really liked Austin, as we didn’t leave the hotel until 11.30AM this morning! But maybe we were just too tired to do anything else!

Our final destination for the day was Houston, TX which only stands about 3 hours / 180 miles away from the “Live Music Capital of the World”.

The drive has been pretty smooth, some local highways through Lockhart, and other places I don’t remember the name, and finally I-10E where opposite to what I thought, the speed limit was only 70 mph, with some points at 65 mph.

As the title might suggest, today it was one of those days where we were longing for weird, crazy things.

We got the answer to our prayers in the person of Mr. Jeff McKissack, who spent his life, and his money on a project called “The Orange Show”.

He obviously had a special relationship with oranges, but he also liked orange as a color.

He spent about 25 years of his life to build this “house”, that he thought was going to be a great success.

He died three months after he opened the house to the public, without seeing his “creature” coming to fame. Someone even said that he died of a broken heart because of the failure of his project.

It’s all a different story now, as Mr. Jeff McKissack continues to live through “The Orange Show” and the foundation that has been created after his death, that takes care of eclectic artists from all over the world.

The Orange Show is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places designated by the United States Department of the Interior.

If you’re really in the mood for something eclectic, pay a visit there, the lady that let us in today was very nice, she gave us two postcards, and a questionnaire with weird questions Mr. McKissack himself formulated. For $1 each, you really have to come see it!

Because of all the colors, the place reminded me of a Gaudi project with a strong Picasso influence, I hope you get the feeling!

The second stop of the day has been the Beer Can House, something that you can find at 222 Malone Street. I can’t look into the future, but I know already what the first words coming out of you mouth are going to be: “Holy S**T, this guy is crazy!”.

I can’t imagine how many hours Mr. John Milkovisch has spent on his project, not too mention the amount of beer he had to drink before the he could finish the house.

I’m not sure how the inside of the house looks like as they only offer tours on Saturdays and Sundays, but I can tell you more about the outside. Everything from the walls, to the Mail Box, to some large flower boxes, are covered, or made out of beer cans.

Once we got there, there were already three people taking pictures of it, and now, keep in mind that this house is in a residential neighborhood with absolutely no signs to indicate where the house is, therefore, it is not easy to find.

Soon after we ended up our eclectic tour of the day, we headed to Mike’s, a dear friend of mine who has a beautiful house in a very nice part of the city that I’ve known for several years.

After a drink and a nice chat, we decided to try a Mexican place (since we both love Mexican), that is only about five minutes away from where he lives.

I knew Mike wouldn’t have taken us to any place that wasn’t at least superb, but this restaurant was out of this world.

I should have known we were up for a good time once we got to the parking lot which was absolutely packed. As soon as we entered the establishment I came to realize all the cars outside in the parking lot certainly had more than one person in them, but nonetheless, the hostess told us that it shouldn’t have taken more than 5 to 10 minutes to get a table, and she was absolutely right, we got our table in 5 minutes.

Hap and I enjoyed these gigantic hand-shaken Margaritas that were absolutely to die for (forget about those pre-mixed drink they serve in most of the Mexican Restaurants, this is the real deal, a bartender serving the customer a drink that comes out of a shaker!).

Our waitress was very knowledgeable and very pleasant, and I ended up getting one of the best prepared Mexican meal of my life. Not to mention their chips and salsa, again, out of this world.

If you really like Mexican food and you find yourself in Houston, the name of the restaurant is Pappasito’s Cantina, I’m sure that by the end of the meal you’ll virtually thank me for the precious suggestion.

Tomorrow we will leave Houston and continue to head East towards Florida.

We’re currently planning on stopping in New Orleans, LA for the night, check out the French Quarter, and overall see how the “Big Easy” is recovering from the devastating hurricane of 2005.

Now it’s time to get some sleep and try to digest the Mexican food (I’m sure the Margaritas will help!).

Good night cowboys,

Nico.

Feeling The Heat!

Good Evening my friends!

Can somebody tell me why every time I complain about the clouds, and the rain, then the day after we get such a HOT day that it makes me regret what I said the day before? LOL

That's exactly what happened this morning, as when we left San Antonio it was 95F and humid.

Someone calls it Texas heat, now I know what they mean! Is this a prelude to what is waiting for us when we get back to Florida? Because I'm not looking forward to it! LOL

Can I please go back to Wyoming and play with the snow balls?

All right, all right, I know I can't, therefore I'll just leave it like this! After all, I'm somehow looking forward to getting back to Fort Lauderdale and my routine, especially the gym, because after eating out for so long, and not exercising, well, you can see the result in most of the pictures! ;-)

But let's get back to what happened today!

As I mentioned yesterday, we wanted to go back visit some of the five San Antonio Missions, and so we did.

We went back to "Mission Concepcion", the one that really fascinated me so much yesterday, and "Mission Espada", that apparently, Franciscan Friars still inhabit.

I was right about "Mission Concepcion", and allow me to play with words here when I say that this place was “simply beautiful in its simplicity”.

There has been some restoration work in the past, to try to bring the frescos on the walls back to their original splendor. It was certainly not the work of Michelangelo, nor Giotto, but still, I really appreciated the effort that these Franciscan Friars put into this magnificent project.

Inside the small rooms under the “Portico”, visitors are guided through a series of explanatory panels on how the Friars approached the natives, and how they tried to convert them to Catholicism. It was certainly not an easy task.

Overall, it’s a great feeling to step into the past (the mission was established in 1716 as Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de los Hainais in East Texas, and then moved to San Antonio in 1731) and see what these courageous men have been able to achieve. Most of the buildings are original, that means, they haven’t been reconstructed, definitely a must of history buffs!

"Mission Espada" also revealed to be a masterpiece.

Originally called “Mission San Francisco de la Espada”, it was again a Roman Catholic mission established by Spain in 1731 to convert local Native Americans to Christianity and solidify Spanish territorial claims in the New World.

It's about 5 miles away from "Concepcion", and well worth the trip.

One interesting feature on the main façade of the Church is the “truncated” arch; some say it was actually a mistake made by the architect who wanted to build a bigger arch, but it’s only a supposition and nothing more.

And here is how the inside looks like:

Left the two Missions after sweating a lot under the Texan sun, we had a relatively easy ride from San Antonio to Austin; some heavy traffic leaving San Antonio on I-35N, but other than that, a pretty smooth ride into the Texas State Capitol.

Austin, TX is a beautiful city, and again, it has a river (which means water), and a lake, which is certainly a big plus for me.

The name of the lake is Lady Bird Lake (in honor of Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady), and it’s a reservoir on the Colorado River formed in 1960 by the construction of the Longhorn Dam.

Our hotel is about 4 miles north of the city center, off I-35; I had done some research on this hotel, and we’ve been very happy with it, as it is relatively easy to commute back and forth to downtown.

Our first stop in Austin, TX for the day has been the Texas State Capitol!

Visitors only need to step into the front door and go to the left, where it says “State Treasury”. Tours start every 15 minutes from here, and lasts approximately 45 minutes.

The Texas State Capitol is the largest State Capitol building, after the National Capitol in D.C..
Our tour guide made a point in reminding us several times that in Texas everything is bigger, which made me think that maybe the male population here have what I would define as a “complex of inferiority” in the middle region of their body (anatomically speaking that is…!).

I’m just kidding, I just wanted to see how many people from Texas will get mad at me for what I wrote (Just to prove my theory, you know…!).

Construction of the Capitol building was funded through an article in the state constitution, which authorized the sale of public lands for the purpose. Considering that in Texas they might have a lack of “size” down there (always according to the “Theory”), but they don’t certainly lack land, they really come out with a fantastic deal!

The builders of the capitol were paid with three million acres (12,000 km²) of land in the Texas panhandle, for a comparable cost of $3.7 million for the original building.

I mentioned already the fact that the State Capitol here in Texas is smaller than the National Capitol in D.C., but I also have to mention that the Capitol here has more floor space than any other state capitol building, and it’s almost 15 feet (5 m) higher than the National Capitol! So, there you go, mission completed for Texas!

The tour guide took us through the two chambers of the Texas State Legislature, the upper house Texas Senate with 31 members, and the lower Texas House of Representatives with 150 members.

Here's another view of the Rotunda:

One thing that really got me curious about Texas is first of all, the size of the two chambers, I thought they had way more senators and representatives (considering they always like to make things bigger and better, right?), but also the fact that the legislature meets in regular session on the second Tuesday in January of each odd-numbered year, and that the Texas Constitution limits the regular session to 140 calendar days.

So, that means that they last met in 2007, and that the new session will be in 2009!

Of course, the Governor can call Senators and Representatives back to Austin, for as many session as he wants, lasting up to thirty days.

The tour guide then went on to tell us a little bit more about how the two chambers work (it was very interesting, but I don’t want to go on and on here with that), and then she took us to the new extension of the Capitol Building, that houses offices, meeting rooms, a gift shop, and a replica of the “Rotunda”, but this time without a ceiling, so that people can go out get some fresh air when they want to.

Overall, we had a great time visiting the State Capitol, and you can’t really beat the price (Zero Dollars!).

Left the Capitol, we went hunting for a Starbucks Coffee where to review the schedule for the rest of the afternoon, and enjoy a good cup of coffee in downtown Austin.

It was too hot to walk long distances, so we did 6th Street and the entertainment district with daylight driving down with the car, and then after that, we decided to give Mount Bonnell a try.

Mount Bonnell is also known as Covert Park, and it’s a prominent point alongside Lake Austin.

It has been a popular picnicking and tourist spot since the mid-1800s, as it provides a vista for admiring the city of Austin, Lake Austin, and the surrounding hills.

If you want to see nice expensive houses, that’s exactly the place where to go. Magnificent Victorian and Neoclassical style houses, are combined in these affluent neighborhoods with ultra modern style condos and big houses, making it for a huge melting pot.

Although it might seem like it would create some confusion, it actually adds in my opinion, a nice touch to it.

Visitors who want to admire the beautiful vista from up the top of the hill, need to climb 100 large steps (so much for not being willing to walk under the sun, right?), that I personally counted going down on the way back to the Parking Lot (I was too busy concentrating on my heart beat on the way up to count them!).

The evening was dedicated to a nice dinner, and again, a stroll down the Entertainment District on 6th Street.

Now we’re back to the Hotel, I’m writing the Journal, and trying to watch the Olympics at the same time, I don’t think it’s going to work!

Good night my friends, tomorrow we move to Houston, TX (that now I know was named after Sam Houston, a 19th century American statesman, politician, soldier, and unfortunately, slave-owner and opponent of abolitionism).

Nico

Remember The Alamo!

Good Evening Folks!

The news this evening said it is unusual to see rain in San Antonio, TX at this time of the year, and my answer is: "The knew we were coming"!

You know how I like to get shots of the different cities' skylines, right? This time I really got a poor shot, as it was raining outside and I couldn't really put the window down fearing that some car would give me a free shower from the passing lane beside me!

The first thing we did since it was raining, was to go Hotel hunting. We found a very nice Ramada who's only a mile away from downtown and the Alamo. Rooms are clean, and the price is right, couldn't ask for anything better.

I killed some time waiting for the rain to stop, planning the next days with more details for the things to see and the places to visit, until it finally stopped raining, and we had the chance to go out and enjoy the city.

You can imagine already what our first stop had to be; of course, the Alamo!

I don't think I really need to get into much detail about this important piece of American history.

It felt good to be there, and NO, I didn't actually imagine the Alamo to be bigger than what it actually is. I say this because I came across a lot of reviews of people claiming that they thought the Alamo was actually smaller than what they thought it was.

Here's another nice shot where you can judge for yourself:

And yes, I'm sorry, but I also have to post the picture that proves I've been there!

The Alamo itself could be considered small (although in my opinion it isn't), but the surrounding park (Gift Shop, Research Library and another unidentified building) is quite big compared to the size of the Alamo itself.

This is for instance, the entrance to the right of the main entrance (the classic postcard picture), very "Old World" feeling (as the rest of the structure):


For those visitors not familiar with the Battle Of The Alamo, the RiverCenter Mall has an IMAX Theater that offers 45 minutes screening for roughly $8, a short movie explaining the big Ws: What, Why, When, and Who.

Here's the monument erected on the left side of the Alamo to remember the soldiers who have fought this battle, brave till the end.



Our next stop of the day is right next door to the Alamo and the RiverFront Mall, actually right beside a big building that used to be Dillard's and now is in the process of closing down.



The Cathedral is beautiful on the outside as it is on the inside. The colorful stained glass windows are both in English and German, as this Cathedral has been mainly built the the generous help of German worshippers.

We spent some time inside the church admiring the fine architecture and talking with the guy up above, until it was time to go to our next stop on the list, the Riverwalk, or as the Spanish calls it, "El Paseo Del Rio".

RiverWalk is everywhere in downtown San Antonio, I love looking at water in the middle of a big American city, especially when it is as hot and muggy as it was here today. San Antonio certainly did the trick for me.

The next picture has been taken inside the shopping mall, so yes, the shopping mall has been basically built around the river!

This is where the river "visually ends", with a small bridge where tourists can take their picture.

I must admit the whole stretch inside the shopping mall is very nice, with several bridges, and a small river boat that visitors can hop on (after you purchase the ticket that is), to enjoy more of this beautiful attraction.

RiverWalk goes on and on, for instance, this is another bridge some minutes away from where the other picture has been taken.

RiverWalk is even better at night, when visitors have the chance to enjoy one of the many beautiful restaurants facing the riverfront.

We decided to give "Acenar" a try. It's a Mexican Restaurant right on Houston Street that looking at the menu and their dish presentation, obviously has a modern American influence.

We got a "Balcony" table, that certainly enhanced the overall experience.

I had a classic beef fajitas, and Hap had for the first time in his life "Cabrito En Chile Ancho", that basically translates for you as "Baby Goat"! He said it was good...!

Going back to our mid afternoon tour, we decided to give the San Antonio Missions Trail a try, although we knew that being already after 5PM, they would have all been closed.

There are five Missions in San Antonio, with the first and most important one being San Jose:

Here's the entrance to the Mission:

And here is a shot of the San Jose Mission from the back, as it was impossible to stop at the front with the car without the risk of being run over by oncoming traffic.

Considering this was a shot I took from "The Bug", I think I did a pretty good job for an amateur!

The second mission we decided to go visit was "Mission Concepcion" (the Conception).

As soon as I looked at it, it was almost like getting on a plane and being catapulted back home in Sardinia, I loved it!

This was such a neat place, it would be perfect for a wedding!

I can picture the groom and the bride with the photographer taking pictures of the two of them under the "Portico" next to the Church.

I'm only sorry we couldn't explore the inside, as I really wanted to see if the beauty and the simplicity of the outside were also matched on the inside.

I'm looking forward to do that tomorrow, as our journey through the States will also take us 80 miles Northeast of San Antonio to the Live Music Capital of the World, Austin, Tx.

It should be quite an easy ride, and we also have a hotel over there, which will certainly make it easier for us (less to think about while enjoying our sightseeing tours).

One thing I'm also glad I've been able to do lately during this trip is to watch the Olympic Games in Beijing. It almost feel like they knew we were going to be on a Road Trip and they decided to schedule the events to accomodate our schedule (yeah right! LOL).

Well, I'm seriously enjoying watching the Olympics, and rooting for Team USA (when they're not competing against Italy that is...!).

Good night Little "Crocketts",

Nico

White Sands, Aliens, And The Lone Star...

Good evening Cowboys,

What a long day we had today!

We started off this morning exactly where we left yestarday, in Alamogordo, NM.
White Sands National Monument has been in my radar of places to go visit for a long time, and finally today I had the chance to see it in all its majestic beauty. I almost couldn't wait to check out of the hotel to drive the 16 miles that separate White Sands Boulevard from Hwy 70 where the National Monument is.

Before getting there though, I wanted to call the Ranger Station at the Visitor Information Center to see if there was any military activity planned off Hollman Air Force Base.

This is something you might want to think about to avoid getting stuck, as they do close Hwy 70 with a "twice a week" sort of routine for weapons and aircraft testings.

This National Monument has a magical feeling to it at sunset and at night, when you can see the moon reflecting on its white sand dunes; but even during the day, visitors to White Sands National Monument are up for a great show.

The park (I hate to call it a monument! LOL) wasn't that crowded, which certainly made it for a better experience. Other than a few families with kids trying to "sandboard" from the top of the dunes, we were pretty much the only visitors who were trying to establish a contact with the surrounding rather than disrupting the natural equilibrium that you can sense all around you.

I once again felt the power and originality of Mother Nature; I felt the embracing warmth of the Sun as it kept shining on us, with my eyes protected by RayBan sunglasses from an almost unbearable light reflection on the white sand.

I don't think there are words to describe the experience we had this morning.

I had been in other places on this globe resembling to the stereotypical image all of us have of a "Desert" with a capital "D": Canary Islands off the Coast Of Morocco on the Island of Gran Canaria, the Dunes of Oregon, the beautiful dunes of "Torre Dei Corsari" in the Sardinian Costa Verde, but nothing compares to this place.

The color really stands out and makes the difference, I was impressed with the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, but to actually be able to take the white sand in my hand, play with it, change the shape of my surroundings; that has no price.

We left White Sands National Monument after about 60 minutes of wandering around, experiencing what it means to be free, lifting that heavy weight from our shoulders and just totally relaxing and enjoying the moment.

Our next destination for the day has been Roswell, NM, whose sign says they're famous for being the "Dairy Capital Of The Southwest", but that everybody knows because of what happened in the 40's, with UFOs, Aliens' autopsies, and major crashes.

I was sort of disappointed with this mid-sized city, but I guess part of it goes back to my expectations of what Roswell should have looked and "felt" like from my personal imagination.

The infamous Hangar 84 where they supposedly first collected the pieces of the the wreckage from the UFO is not open to the public anymore (they started opening the Hangar to the public in 2005 for money rasing purposes, but the obviously stopped at some point).

I wanted to go see Hangar 84 at least from the outside, but even with the help of technology I haven't been able to find a precise point where the Hangar is physically located, so we decided to give up on that.

We continued driving South East towards Carlsbad, NM where we were supposed to stay for the night, but then decided to skip and keep driving to Texas.

We eventually got to Texas around 5PM, and all of a sudden it was 6PM since we went from Mountain to Central Time.

Here is a picture of "The Bug" with the welcoming State Sign:

And here is a picture of the Italian traveler:

Can you believe that today we passed the 14,000 miles mark on our journey?

It's hard to believe, but that's exactly what happened, 14,000 miles, equals to 22,400 Kilometers! That's a long way to get to Texas!

One more thing I learned today through this 475 miles day trip, is that Texas is huge! Oh yes, I knew that, but I still quite didn't have an idea of how huge this State is!

Here's a picture of Hwy285, with a 75mph speed limit, it makes it for a nice ride from New Mexico all the way down to I-10.

We initially thought about stopping in Fort Stockton (about 300 miles away from San Antonio, TX), but then, realized that basically all the rooms in the city were booked!

We tried to ask what was going on in town, but without any luck.

We decided to get on I-10 and drive East to see if would have been luckier along the Interstate, and that's when I realized how big Texas is.

I started wondering about it when I saw a sign promoting a Best Western that was "only" 106 miles away, and made a comment about how stupid it was to place a sign to start advertising at such a ridiculous distance...!

Well, little did I know that that was the distance we would have ended up driving to get to our hotel. And so here we are, in Ozona, TX, some 200 miles away from San Antonio, TX (Probably the only positive side of being here! LOL).

We also found out why all the hotels in the area (150 miles radius) are sold out. They're starting new explorations for possible future drilling. There's a truck next to "The Bug" that has something to do with "Wells", go figure!

This is a pretty good business for the Hospitality industry, as they will be solidly booked for a couple of years to say the least.

So, here we are, in Black Gold country (or so they hope), on our way to San Antonio, TX, Austin, and Houston, for our personal tour of Texas and its wonderful steakhouses! ;-)

Tomorrow we hope to be in San Antonio by mid afternoon, so that we can get a chance to check in at a hotel, do some sightseeing, and generally enjoy the city and what it has to offer.

Good night from Ozona "Middle of Nowhere", TX,
Nico