I had a lot of photos from San Antonio to sort through and it took me a long time to figure out how I wanted to share the experience. I decided that slide-shows of each of the things/places we went might be easiest. I’ll do my best to recap before you look through them. As always, click on one photo to scroll through them all in a larger size. Enjoy!

Our first visit Friday, was to visit the historic Alamo. I had been when I was about 11, and don’t remember being that impressed but this time was different. I enjoyed taking photos, looking around at the grounds, and really remembering my Texas History, which is taught 3 times to Texas kids while growing up. There is a nearly 140 year old live oak at the Alamo that was exceptionally spectacular, and of course, anyone that knows me realizes that I love, love, love, love, love cacti, and there were plenty on the grounds to photograph. My sister was with us as well and was nice enough to snap a photo of Zach and I when we completed our tour.

Then we were off to the Spanish Governor’s Palace, Circa 1722. I had a whole paragraph written on this, but it got deleted and I don’t want to rewrite it. Sorry!

We spent plenty of time on the River Walk, which is just cool. I didn’t take as many photos as I would have liked, because frankly I wasn’t into packing the camera bag, and my purse around. But my new Epiphanie Bag is going to solve that problem. We ate, and ate some more, and I enjoyed my fair share of the best beer ever- and of course it’s courtesy of the Shiner Brewery in Shiner, Texas. If you love beer and you’ve never had a Shiner Bock, you’re missing out. I promise. If you’re friends with me on Facebook, I probably made you dizzy with all my check-ins! Needless to say we had a GREAT time!

Saturday we headed to New Braunfels, Tx to hang out with my kid brother, my sister-in-law and my niece and new nephew. After a lovely morning at the Jumpy Place (where we made an attempt to wear my almost 3 year old niece, Tatum, out), we headed to Gruene, Tx (in Texas, it’s just simply pronounced Green- if you’re German and you read this, please forgive us!) to have lunch at one of my all-time favorite places to eat- The Gristmill. It’s right on the Guadalupe River, in an old Cotton Gin and the place has so much character it’s just not even funny. Dining on the Guadalupe doesn’t get better, y’all! It screams Texas Hill Country, rustic, and everything else I love about where I grew up. Not only is Gruene home of The Gristmill, it’s also the home to Gruene Hall, Texas’ oldest Dance Hall. They had a band playing that afternoon and Tatum, was all about dancing with Aunt Jenn. I have to say, all that dancing with that adorable child is BAD for the baby fever occasionally creeps up on me. There must have been an old car show going on somewhere around there because the parking lot was full of classic cars. I took photos of two of my favorites.

Sunday morning arrived and we checked out of our hotel, and drove to Wimberly, Texas where we were going to visit my brother and his wife at their lovely home, and then we were scheduled to head to Driftwood, Texas to eat some of the world’s best bar-b-que at The Salt Lick. When we arrived, we were greeted by my brother and Tatum walking down the road- they’d just come from feeding the neighbor’s horses. We jumped on the trampoline and went to the river, as they live on the Blanco, and then headed to have some amazing BBQ. They’ve added a wine cellar since I was there last time, so Zach took me to my first wine tasting. It was splendid! He even participated and he’s not a wine drinker. It must be true love! I came back with two bottles! I wanted to come back with about 5, but I was afraid I’d run out of room in my suitcase. After all there was a slight packing debacle (more on that later)! Suffice it to say, I’m not allowed to pack unsupervised anymore. Zach jests, I think.

There’s more photos to come, but this is all the photos I have that I took! I hope you enjoyed seeing my trip to Texas as much as I enjoyed sharing it!

Happy Trails!

XO, TSDC