This is Texas, Y'All!

We began our day at San Antonio, Texas at the Alamo, of course. To tell you the truth, I didn't remember much of the downtown area where the Alamo (as well as other attractions) is located. I might be wrong here, but I think that when we lived in San Antonio, the downtown area wasn't as pretty and well kept as it is today. The Alamo was packed with people, especially kids on a day trip with their school, learning about how Texas fought and won the Mexicans for its independence. I lived in San Antonio between ages 12 and 13 and I guess that it was a very impressionable age, cause in some bizarre way, I feel connected to Texas. It has got to be one of the proudest states in the USA, their flag and other icons (like the longhorn, the lone star, etc) are scattered everywhere. You've got to appreciate that. Anyway, after the Alamo we went to lunch at a very nice Mexican restaurant on the Riverwalk. I told Gila that if there's something I remember about San Antonio, is that they have EXCELLENT Mexican (or Tex-Mex) food...and I'm glad to report that it's true till this day. Lunch was terrific, with its Fajitas, Guacamole, and much much more! After lunch we went for a walk and ended up in La Villita, which is a small artist colony housed in these Mexican adobe-like structures. Next to it is the Tower of the Americas which has a revolving restaurant at the top and is probably the highest building in San Antonio. The downtown is small and by the afternoon we had covered all that there is to see, so we got in the car and punched into our GPS (nicknamed Debbie, but more on that later...) the address where we used to live - 8375 Thorncliff Drive. It was amazing to see that nothing has changed! You can check out my old house, school, favorite pizza place and other attractions on flickr
It was a pretty exciting ride down memory lane...
As it was getting dark, we checked into the hotel and later went out to Boudro's, an excellent restaurant on the Riverwalk where we enjoyed a nice juicy steak and Yellow Fin Tuna steak.


The next morning we headed out towards El Paso and stopped at a couple of interesting places along the way. The first was Fredricksburg, a town you wouldn't normally go out of your way to visit, but is a true gem. Fredricksburg is basically a town built by a bunch of Germans who came to Texas ages ago but still live by their German heritage. They have a wonderful factory for smoked meat called "Opa", where we had to stop and buy some smoked sausages...yummy! The main street is lined with picturesque stores and happy German cowboys.


The next attraction on the way to El Paso were the Caverns of Sonora. Beautiful! Because we arrived a little late and didn't have time for the full 2 hour tour, we got a quick 1 hour private tour. The caverns were just breathtaking and our tour guide enjoyed snapping photos of Gila and I at all the romantic places along the way...
We got to El Paso really late, checked in and went to bed...we were just exhausted.



The next morning we kept driving to Tucson, Arizona, stopping at Lordsburg for some real Mexican food and Tombstone to see one of the most famous ghost towns of the Old Wild West. Lordsburg was a real "hole in the ass" as we like to say in Hebrew. It was a ghost town without anyone ever declaring it as such. There wasn't anyone in the street and we pursued with caution past the train tracks to a little dinner at the end of the world which promised "Real Mexican Food". It was a surreal experience. By the way, we were amazed to see how many trains passed those tracks riding along I-10 from El Paso to Tucson, and every train was a few miles long...amazing! Next was Tombstone where many famous Western movies were shot...Tombstone, Gun Fight at OK Coral, etc...
Tombstone came to be when Ed Schiefflin found ridiculous amounts of silver back in the 1800's and the town prospered into a real metropolis (in the standards of those days, of course). Today, the town retains its wild west charm but is a little touristy. You've got carriage rides, and cowboys walking along the street. The streets are gravel with boardwalks on either sides. There's a saloon and a bank and gun fight reenactments...and everything you can think of to make an extra buck. We decided to go for the real tombstone experience, a mining tour, led by a young man called Sean who grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. It was amazing to see the old mine, how they worked, what they did...here's a quick summary. Miners back in those days made about $96 a year which was one of the highest paying jobs compared to soldiers who made $15 and cowboys who made about $35. However, the life of a miner was horrible! They worked 10 hour shifts with only 3 candles, each candle lasting about an hour to an hour and a half so most of the time they worked in the dark. Imagine one person holding the chisel and the other swinging the hammer in the DARK!!! Ventilation was crap, you had dynamite blowing all over the place and once a day someone had to volunteer to push one of the iron cart with all the pee and poop up top...that guy made an extra dollar that day. Anyway, it was a fascinating your! One last anecdote before we wrap up this post. As you're leaving Tombstone, a road from Nogales comes up on your left. Nogales is a town on the border with Mexico and so obviously the authorities decided to put a checkpoint of the Department of Homeland Security to make sure no one was taking back any illegals from Tombstone into American soil. Well, as we were driving past the checkpoint we were stopped! The officer asked us if we were USA citizens. I panicked and answered "Yes" and then realized what I said and said "No"...and added that we're Israeli citizens. Well, that turned on all the right lights in the guy's head and we were pulled aside for a more "personal" examination. At the end, nothing really bad happened. We thought that at some point, Gila might be taken for trying to smuggle a little Mexican in her stomach but they didn't pick up on that. From that point on, Gila and I made a decision that every once in a while when I wasn't ready she would surprise me by asking "USA citizen?" and I would have to answer quickly without think...you know, just to be ready for the next checkpoint. From there we continued to Tucson where we spent the night. More on that later.