Although we had arrived after the office had closed, we found someone to show us the cabin where we would be staying. The weather in Texas was COLD! There was a definite nip in the air and I had arrived still wearing my sandals! We ran back to town and bought something to make a picnic supper and went to bed. We spent part of the next day at Walmart buying some extra clothes and I finally got a haircut. This day was a bit of a catch-up day with shopping and homework.
We have been looking forward to horseback riding since we began our trip, and as it costs quite a bit most places we were thrilled to hear that we would be allowed to go out riding at His Hill. Friday was the big day. We met in the afternoon at the corral and met Mark, the man in charge of the horses. We met the horses and heard what to do and what not to do. Then we led the saddled horses from the barn down to the corral. Wait- did Jeremiah lead his horse or did it lead him??? He can't even reach the horses neck! Anyway, he was the first one to get on and, Since he wasn't going on the trail with us, he had a little lesson and rode JJ around the corral and around some pylons. He learned how to use his reins and seemed quite proud of himself.
Then it was our turn. Rebecca rode Buster, Elena had JJ, I rode on Chip, and Jonathan proudly rode a black and white named Oreo! Since we have been eating Oreo cookies on our trip Jonathan was excited about that. We had a relaxing, albeit COLD, ride around and then were allowed to help unsaddle the horses, clean up after them and even ride on the tractor to feed them.
Saturday started off as a slightly misty day but it cleared up nicely as we drove north of Fredericksburg. We went up to Enchanted Rock State Park, which had been recommended to us by good friends who used to work at His Hill. This park is a HUGE pink granite rock and it reminded us a bit of Ayers Rock (Uluru) in Australia. We hiked up with throngs of weekend wanderers, including a lot of Boy Scout groups. We were headed for the cave in the hill, which you can go through if you have some sort of light with you. We knew that I couldn't go through the cave with Josiah, Dominik checked, but it was just too steep and too narrow. So we ate a snack together and they headed off. Because there were so many Scout groups also going through the cave it was a bit of a wait, but eventualy they got in. I headed down to the car with Josiah, also a hike, after we saw that both Elena and Jeremiah would be fine in the cave. They had fun going through, even crawling on their bellies at one point! Then, once out in the open again, Jeremiah promptly threw up all over Dominiks's leg! Oh dear.... This was coincidental and had nothing to do nothing to do with their adventure. He was happy enough before they started! It was just the beginning of a virus! Anyway, he went right to sleep in the car and was soon well.
Saturday night Dominik took the oldest three kids to the Tejas Rodeo in Bulverde, north of San Antonio. They watched Bull riding, calf roping, barrel riding and they had a 'cow scrambling' activity for the kids. The highlight of the night for Elena was her purchase of a lovely pink 'cow girl' hat! They had a great time!
Sunday was our last day at the Hill and we discovered that we had planned to be at church on the right Sunday- they had a pot-luck lunch after the service! Now, some pot-luck dinners are really a hit-and -miss affair, but this was fantastic! We really enjoyed it and visiting and it was only part-way back to His Hill that we realised that we had forgotten the baby stroller at the church! Fortunately, there was a key where we were staying and we just had another leisurely drive, as if we don't drive enough right now, to the church and back. The rest of the day passed really nicely visiting with some long-term staff at His Hill. It was great to get to know them better and it helped to reinforce the feeling that we really are like a family at Torchbearer's.
Sunday evening Dominik went out to eat "some real southern food" with a guy from Austria who is in his second year of Bible School here. He knows Dominik from retreats at the Schloss. They had a great time catching up because the kids and I were all in bed when he got back!
So, speaking of family, having bid them all farewell at His Hill, we embarked on a really short drive to the northern edge of San Antonio where we would meet and stay with my fourth cousin and her husband. My Dad and my cousin, Mary Jane, both do alot of Family Tree research and found each other this way. We have the same family who lived in Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire, who went to Barbados and then came up to Canada. Interestingly, to me at least, our branch of the family were late to marry each time (yup, including me) and my cousin's line wasn't and so she is actually a direct fourth cousin with my children! Interesting too because she is my Mum's age! Anyway, enough of the geneology part!
We arrived to a very warm welcome and the suprise that my cousin's daughter was also there to meet us! We had a great visit and then went downtown to see the Riverwalk and the Alamo. A long time ago I worked at a Children's Hospital in downtown San Antonio and so I was expecting to see the Riveralk as it was then. Well, we were here in the off-season so there were fewer tourists, fewer river boats, and not many restaurants had music playing outside. We could see the coloured lights hanging from the trees but the weren't lit up. Still, we had a nice walk and we made our way from there to the Alamo.
Now, for North Americans the Alamo is famous because there is that expression, "Remember the Alamo", but I don't know that others will know about it. The Alamo was built in 1724 by the Spanish as a Catholic mission. It was then secularised in 1793, was farmed by Indians and then the Spanish an Mexican military used it as a garrison in the early 1800's. In 1835 some Texans fought the Mexicans for the occupation of San Antonio and won, then occupying the city and the Alamo itself. On Februars 23, 1836 General Santa Anna arrived to fight to win the city back. The Texans and Tejanos held out for 13 days before being defeated on March 6, 1836. Among the dead were Davy Crockett (of the wild frontier) and Jim Bowie (famous knife fighter). The day that we were there they had a display of old guns and bullets to see, and there were volunteers with a model of the old Alamo, answering questions about it. It amused Dominik that the volunteer that he listened to didn't actually give that much information about the battle, but that his main point was that he is first and foremost a Texan and therefore at his home he flies the Texas flag a few inches higher than the American flag!
As we made our way home for supper we saw, just outside the Alamo, a couple in leather jackets being followed around by a little film crew. We didn't recognise them, neither did my cousin or her husband, but they didn't appear to be very classy. Amazing who gets filmed these days!
We wanted our last day in the city to be a bit more relaxing because we've seen that the kids are slowly getting tired out from travelling. We decided to drive out to the Natural Bridge Cave for a tour, have some lunch and then relax at home. This cave was really large! It has been open since the 1960's to tours and so it's walkways and steps in the cave are all paved and have hand rails and dim lights inside. There were glass doors at both the entrance and exit of the cave, keeping in the 90% humidity and Temperaturen of 74 degrees F. It was really warm in there! We had dressed for a cool cave and were quickly pulling off layers. The size of the cave and the formations inside were spectacular. There were some very impressive stalactites (hanging down from the ceiling) and stalagmites (growing up from the floor). The tallest one was 10 m tall! We very much enjoyed the tour, despite the evolutionary perspectives, but the guide was a young guy who have an answer to all questions whether he had the information or not. There were some really good questions from some people and he answered nonsense in a very authoritative manner. This was a good lesson for the kids: If you don't know an answer just say so. You look more intelligent admitting that than to say something that everyone knows is rubbish!
So back to the house for the kids to relax and to try to journal a bit. We had a real Texas meal of brisket, I did laundry and that was that! We enjoyed our fun and adventures and visiting and the next morning we set our sites on Houston. But wait! The NAVI updated overnight, or the tablet did, and all if our downloaded maps were gone! Fortunately we discovered this while fueling up near to Mary Jane and Wayne's so we drove back to download the map of Texas. Then, finally, we were off!
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