Day 68 - On A Mission

The day started at a leisurely pace as washing needed to be done again. Once chores were done, we got in the car and made our way to a number of missions in the area. The Alamo yesterday is one of five that the Spanish set up in the San Antonio region. The first mission we visited, San José, is the largest in the region with a lot of the original architecture intact, including the large Church. The walled area and the various connected rooms add to the details of the mission and the adjoining museum helped fill in the gaps. All the missions are free to enter and Alice and I have been impressed with the amount of services and information available to the public. Before we hit mission number two, we needed food.

We were both really hungry and so it was time to go big - Texas style. With a bar-b-q lunch at the B&B Smokehouse. We chose the two meat platter. Chicken and pulled pork for me and chicken and beef brisket for Alice. Oh my word! The meats were too good for words. We both had creamed corn as sides and I had rice and Alice had potato salad. If that was not enough, a slice of bread was thrown in for good measure. It was so good that I lost my internal stop sign and just kept eating. I was to regret that as I was not hungry for nearly a whole twenty four hours! My gluttony takes nothing away from the meal, a generous meal in portion size and well priced.

We then drove to a further two missions that were a lot smaller in size but due to their close proximity to each other allowed a sense of scope for the reach of all the missions. We walked in, had a look around and then left. We checked the time and decided to go to our evening's entertainment early, another basketball game. This time we were watching the San Antonio Spurs take on the Miami Heat at the AT&T Center. There was a pre-game event involving a large number of young musicians which meant we had to wait around for a while. However, once inside, the buzz was slowly beginning to build. Compared to the Chicago Bulls build-up the Spurs build-up seemed subdued. Their mascot is a coyote with menacing green eyes and he just ran on and ran off at the beginning. The national anthem was performed by a group of young trombonists, maybe they were the winners from the pre-game event. The lights were lowered and the teams ran out and the game started. The stadium had a number of empty seats and this might have contributed to the flat atmosphere. It was still enjoyable for Alice and I and the Spurs raced into an early lead that they didn't lose. The crowd soon warmed up and it was quite a comfortable victory for the home team in the end. Basketball and Ice Hockey are fantastic spectator sports as the action doesn't let up throughout. There are also the breaks and time out entertainment to consider. The crazed mascot came on the court a few times and stomped his feet to a Spurs chant. There were also T-shirts thrown into the crowd although they did it a little different here to the last game we saw as a whole section in the stadium won a T-shirt as opposed to loads begin chucked into the stands. There was also another competition that was $25 to spend at a casino and on the big screen three numbers slowly revealed what section was to win. We were seated in 209 and the first number was a two, then it slowly revealed a zero and we both thought there was a good chance we could win and the last number that ever so slowly revealed itself was an... Eight! The section next to us all jumped up and down high fiving each other. Before the announcement we weren't interested in going to a casino but coming within one section made us feel like it would have been cool to have won it anyway. What's more, with the T-shirt throwing time out exercise, there was a guy not that far in front of us who was shouting out 'over here', ecstatically waving his arms about. From all the sports events we have been to so far the T-shirts never seemed to make it to us. Out of nowhere a wrapped T-shirt missile headed in his direction and he caught it! More high fives followed. It was nice to see how pleased he was with his prize. In the fourth quarter Alice and I decided to leave a bit early as the result looked certain and we had parked quite a distance away in one of the lots. We're glad we did as people were already streaming out and we would have been stuck for a while if we hadn't left then. A fun evening and probably the last sporting event we will watch whilst here in the states. They have all been high value entertainment and definitely worth a night out.

Song of the Day:
George - Amarillo Morning (we weren't in Amarillo, but we heard it at lunch and it mentions San Anton - as the locals call it)Read more