Jan 27 - Riverwalk

There hasn't been much winter in San Antonio so far this year.  Galen and I like taking the park and ride downtown and walking out to the library and back.  It was so beautiful today we stopped at Rivercenter Mall for lunch on the way back and ate outside so we could listen to the live music and take photos of the tourists.

Jan 8 and 29 - Wurzbach Parkway

January 8, 2012

January 29, 2012

It has been a month since I've posted anything partly because we are still in San Antonio and there are lots of things to do besides take photos.  We are normally only here for two months but this year we'll be here a total of four months.  We had planned to be in Florida by now, but you know how plans can be sometimes.  Anyway, I started shooting photos of the newest section of the Wurzbach Parkway on our way to church on Sunday mornings.  When completed the parkway will run from the west side of the city to the east side.  The eastern end runs along side the RV park where we stay.  This section is in the middle and will run right past our church, Coker UMC, that has been hidden away between Blanco and West Avenue for the last 125+ years.

Nov 30 - Mission San Jose

Mission San Jose

A closer view

I love photographing this area.

Last year they worked on the upper half of the door.  This year - the lower half.

The mortar was crumbling so it was removed and is in the process of being replaced.

There is some interesting hardware in the mission.

The famous Rose Window

This is the first time I've seen the updated altar area, which is a bit much for my taste, but it sure makes for an interesting photo.  The San Jose church is a working church that fills up every Sunday.

Nov 30 - Mission Concepcion

Some don't know that there are four other missions besides the Alamo in San Antonio and my friend, Andrea, and I visited two of them on a lovely day.  This is Mission Concepcion - not as fancy as the much larger Mission San Jose, but I like it better.

A close up of the door

This is on the ceiling in one of the rooms.

The inside of the church looking toward the back of the church.

This light hangs at the front of the church.

Nov 23 - Botanical Gardens

Andrea and I went to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens on a beautiful day and shot photos galore.  I just bought the Topaz Adjust plug in for Photoshop so had a great time Topaz Adjusting my photos.

This is actually three photos made into one.

The cabin is one of our favorite places in the Botanical Gardens

One of the many very cool effects in Topaz Adjust

More help from Topaz Adjust

One of the sculptures

Another sculpture and another Topaz Adjust effect

Even more help from Topaz Adjust.  Can you tell I like my new "toy"?

Nov 18 - Downtown SA

One of our favorite things to do while in San Antonio is go walking downtown.  We usually get off the bus near the Alamo and walk to the library.  This time we stopped in front of the Alamo and had our photo taken with the Toulon, IL newspaper to send back to Galen's home town.  The paper likes to post photos of where their newspapers have traveled.

They were busy putting up the tree in front of the Alamo today.  The tree and the Riverwalk lights will be lit the day after Thanksgiving.  The Riverwalk got new lights this year - 1.75 million brilliant LED lights.  We'll get photos and post them.

We missed our bus by 29 seconds so went into the historic San Fernando Cathedral.  We hadn't been in there for a long time.  The altar is new, just dedicated this week.

Some of the heroes of the Alamo are buried inside San Fernando Cathedral.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Nov 7 - Central Market

One of the nicest things about being back in San Antonio is Central Market, an upscale grocery store set up like a European Market.  We bring all of our visitors here.  They roll their eyes when we tell them we are going to a grocery store, but we haven't had a single ho hum response from one person after we get them there.  These photos are for Mary Jane, whom we are trying to lure to San Antonio.

Breads

I am told Central Market has 50 pastry chefs.

More beautiful bakery goodies.

We didn't count how many kinds of mustards there were.  You can't count them either because they wouldn't all fit in the photo.

Central Market has 450 kinds of cheese.  This guy is making mozzarella cheese.

Not pictured is the deli, the soups, the sushi bar, the coffee shop, etc.  One large section of the store has tables and chairs and a microwave so you can go and spend the day and not get hungry.  The very coolest part of the store is produce - half a dozen long aisles of it.