Guadalupe River State Park

San Antonio, Tx

We departed from Marfa on a really chilly and really early morning in order to make it to the San Antonio area before nightfall. We tend to avoid major interstates so our mode of travel is slow and meandering. This was one of our longest travel days in awhile as we tend to break up a long haul over several days but it was less feasible this time with the reservation window we had at the state park on the northwest side of SA.

It stayed chilly and we got socked in a wet weather pattern for most of our stay in San Antonio. This was our first parlay with any moisture since snow in Bryce Canyon NP way back in mid-November. It’s been nice taking the winter off but we were bound to catch some inclement weather sometime. The upside was, of course, no crowds anywhere. We had the run of the one open state park trail and campground pretty much to ourselves. We also got our first experience with some of Texas’s wildlife, armadillos rooting around everywhere, vibrant red cardinals, strange dinosaur-sounding birds that we were never able to identify but certainly heard numerous times. We obtained a Texas State Parks pass for this visit and plan to fully utilize it as long as there are places to stay.

Here’s proof that not ALL armadillo in Texas are dead on the side of the road.

Along with plenty of time in nature, we visited the Alamo and enjoyed exploring the greater San Antonio area, we met up with three former New Denver Church families and spend an evening picnicking with them and catching up.

The Alamo (which was smaller than we were expecting)

Our favorite lucky food find was a hole in the wall BBQ joint where we had the best brisket we’d ever tasted. If you’re ever there go to The Station BBQ and have a spiritual experience (if you like meat of course).

We were pleasantly surprised with our mutual enjoyment of this place so we went ahead and extended three more days before departing to Austin. Our visit with our friends also filled the longing for connection we didn’t realize we’d been missing since departing from our new friends in Tucson. This pandemic may change how we interact with one another for a long time into the future but it doesn’t mean we need one another any less. Community remains important even when we’re distant and have to get creative to see each other.