A Second Week in Central/South Texas

 

Did you all know that there is a Stonehenge replica in Central Texas?  Well, here it is in Ingram.  Apparently some guy had an extra slab of concrete and put it in his yard and then decided to make it into a replica of Stonehenge.  When his land was sold, it was moved to this Arts Center.

It's Pi

There are also a couple Easter Island heads too.

On our drives on I-35 we passed the outlets in San Marcos.....so we finally went.  And, as always, why does the brand Nautica exist?

One evening, we were invited to dinner with my friend Theresa, who was in town from Austin.

Ice Cream!  The heat is starting to break, so the evenings are nice to sit outside.

In Austin, we drove around and wanted to walk around and visit the Texas State Capitol, but, do I need to say...COVID-19 closed.

We wanted to eat BBQ, but the famous place Onions first found had a 3lb minimum of meat.  That's a lot of meat, too much for us to eat, so instead, we found a taco truck.  

The tacos were great, but I must say that not being able to sit in a restaurant and having to make the additional work of thinking about where to actually eat, and having to do all this contactless ordering is starting to wear on me.  Thankfully, Onions takes care of all the ordering.

Downtown Austin from Mount Bonnell

Looking across the Colorado River and the BIG houses!

San Antonio doesn't have any Asian Markets, so on our way back we took a trip to 99 Ranch!

Onions was impressed at the cleanliness (it felt like Whole Foods) and selection that he doesn't find in the Bay Area.

Remember the Alamo!!!

So, being a non-Texan, I had no idea what the Alamo meant.  But after the visit, it's basically a bunch of immigrants from the United States into Mexico who got unhappy and revolted.  The Alamo was where 186 of them were killed in a thirteen day siege in 1836 by the Mexicans.

This is the rear of the Alamo Church.  And that, pretty much, is a visit to the Alamo!

The buildings around the Alamo Complex are more interesting architecturally.

This is the gift shop.  Beautiful, but come one, even those of us with basic Art History knowledge see that there are CORINTHIAN columns on this building.  So no way it's original and upon further investigation, it was built in 1936. 

Proof that Onions joined me at The Alamo.

Posing like James Bowie, my phone is the knife and my mask (hidden) is the hat.

The Long Barrack, the oldest building in the Alamo Complex