Off to Texas and Mississippi

Steve and I got to take a little trip on our own to San Antonio, TX at the beginning of October.  It is a place that we have both wanted to go for a while so when he was invited to attend a risk management conference there by his insurance company, Energi, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity.  Steve has won a risk management award two out of the last three years and has been invited to conferences in Orlando before, but this was the first year that it actually worked out time wise.  Because he won an award, our room was paid for so all we had to pay for was air fare and anything else we chose to do.  The other thing that we were excited about was that George W. Bush was  the keynote speaker at the conference.  We figured you don't get to listen to a former US president in person very often, so we decided to go.

Here we are in the Atlanta airport on the way down.  The conference took place during week 8 of the fitness challenge so we took advantage of a really long layover to get our exercise in.  Exercising turned out not to be a problem as we got a lot of walking in in Texas, but the conference killed us on sweet days!!  Yikes!!  We took a sweet day every day but one so, unfortunately, our scores plummeted.  But hey, we had a great time!!

The conference itself was at an amazing JWMarriott in the hill country north of San Antonio.  Everything about this place was first class.  So much fun!!  But right after we flew in, we went to the first night's activity at Knibbe Ranch.  Our flight got in a little late so we got there after most people had finished eating, but thankfully the food was still out.  Steve and I both said that this was probably our favorite meal in San Antonio.  It was amazing.  They had ribs, steaks, baked beans, smashed potatoes, tons of salads, biscuits, cornbread, etc.  Everything was delicious.  We hadn't eaten sweets that day, but when we saw the dutch oven apple crisp along with four other kinds of desserts, we made the first choice (of many) to take a sweet day and give them a try.

After dinner we headed over to the rodeo and then enjoyed a wonderful fireworks display.  Then is was back to the gathering hall for dancing with a live band.  We listened for a while, but since we had not even checked in to the hotel yet, we decided to head down and check in.  As you can see by the pictures above and below, lots of people had come prepared with cowboy hats, etc.  

It was a lot of fun.

The next day (Tuesday) after meetings in the morning at the hotel, we headed down to San Antonio to see some sights.  We, of course, wanted to see the Alamo, but had heard that there were other interesting missions to see, as well.  We decided to go south of the city and work our way up to the Alamo visiting the other four missions south of it.  It was a super hot day, but we really enjoyed exploring.

Steve by one of the walls of the Mission Espada.

The church itself was under construction.

A look at the stone work of the walls

Near Mission Espada was a place where you could see one of the aqueducts that ran between the missions.  These are hundreds of years old and many are still standing.  This photo is taken from above looking down at the aqueduct channel.  

Here's a side view showing the arched body of the aqueduct.  So cool!!

Some beautiful cactus in a garden outside Mission San Jose

Looking over the garden at the fort walls surrounding the mission

Inside the walls of the fort at Mission San Jose.  The mission itself has been repaired and reconstructed as many of the walls had crumbled.  This was the biggest of the missions we saw and probably the most well known besides the Alamo itself.  It was beautiful.

Steve from farther back at San Jose.  He is standing by an old oven or kiln.

We decided to get a photo by the sign at this mission.  

Didn't think of that at the other two we had been to.  :)

This was my favorite of the missions we went to.  Although it was not in such good condition, it was completely original and had had not reconstruction done.  

Here is a front view of Mission Concepcion

And here we are at the Alamo.  It was so fun to see it and I think we enjoyed it more after seeing the other missions.  We went inside and saw the different displays, walked around the beautiful gardens behind it and to the side of it, and spent too much time in the gift shop.  :)

Here is the official photo snapped by a kind guy who offered to take our picture.

After seeing the Alamo, we walked around for a little bit downtown.  Steve desperately wanted to take a Segway tour of the city.  I was less enthused about the idea.  We found the place for the tours and went in to see if they had one we would like.  It originally seemed as if it wasn't going to work because the one that looked interesting to us required that they call someone in to lead it and she was unavailable.  Darn...what a shame.  But then they said the other guy that leads it would be back in a half hour from another tour and they would check to see if he could do one for us.  Since we had a little time to kill, we walked to one of the two Wyndham Vacation Resorts in San Antonio to check it out.  The nice man there took us on a little tour of this quaint, older resort.  It was pretty cool.  We figured that it would be good to check out if we ever got back there with the kids.   Just as we were leaving, we got a call from the Segway place saying, "Sure, Matt would love to take us on a tour!" I was, of course, overjoyed!!  

But, as is usually the case, the Segway tour was a lot of fun.  Matt was very knowledgeable and patient and taught us how to ride so that we were both very comfortable.  If you get the chance to try it sometime, you really should.  I got to ride on a pink Segway named Jill.  Steve rode on Harry. :)

Here we are at the end of our tour, once again in front of the Alamo

After our tour we headed to the Riverwalk.  This was the other thing we had heard a lot about before coming to San Antonio.  We had walked along parts of it earlier in the day as we did our sight seeing and Matt took us along some more green, garden-like sections on our Segway tour.  We wanted to check out a restaurant and get some dinner.  We chose Mexican (which there are a ton of) and had a delicious dinner at Casa Rio.  The photo is taken of Steve talking to Evan on the phone just as we finished our dinner.  You can see the lights reflecting in the river in the background.  The whole river walk idea is such a great one.  There are stores, parks, restaurants, etc for miles and it is such a beautiful setting.  Matt told us all about the history of it....how the river used to flood or run dry and was actually a nuisance until they figured out how to stabilize the water level with all these underground channels and stuff.  Now, they are able to keep it at a constant water level no matter the amount of rain they have.

As you can see, Tuesday was a very full day.  It ended perfectly with us sharing this delicious flan!! 

Yep...one more sweet day used.  :)

Our view from our window at the JWMarriott.  You can see the pool and parts of the lazy river here.

Looking left you can see the water slides in the background.  We tried them and the pool out  the next day.  I loved the view of the hill country in the background.  We had actually flown in to Austin on Monday and had driven the hour south to get to the ranch and then the hotel.  The countryside was so unique with its scrubby trees.  We had expected it to be much more barren than it was.

Looking to the right you can see the golf course and more hill country.  Beautiful!!

We went into San Antonio after meetings the next day, too. We had seen most of what we wanted to see the day before, but still had a few things on our list.  The Mexican market was not that great.  We thought it would be an outdoor place with vendors, but it was more like the inside part of Columbus Market.  So, we took a trolley ride, checked out the old Governor's Palace, and headed back to the River Walk so that we could take a River Barge Cruise.  It, like most of the days we were there, was very hot that day!!

Most of the photos I took from our barge were not that great.  It is a hard thing to capture.  But here are a few of them. 

Looking from the barge to one of the restaurant entrances

A little water display along the way

Doesn't Steve look thrilled in all of these photos?  

This one shows some the the elaborate stairways leading down to the River Walk from ground level.

It also shows the big orange sculpture that sits in the center of San Antonio and is called La Antorcha de la Amistad (the Torch of Friendship). It was a gift from Mexico to the city of San Antonio.

After our river ride, we went to the Pearl Brewery section of the town. This is an area that has all kinds of new little restaurants. The Culinary Institute of America has a campus there and it has spawned all these little boutique restaurants. We went to one called the Granary. It was so delicious. We had pork, brisket, barbecue along with their own, made on site, root beer and ginger beer. Yum!!

Thursday was the big day for the conference. We started out with a speaker who was a former lineman for the New England Patriots - Matt Light. At about 11:15 people started lining up to go through security so that we could go in for lunch and our Pres. Bush presentation. It was a pretty tight ship!! After getting into the ballroom, we were able to sit at a table about 30 feet from where the president would be. The lunch was amazing (which was the case at every meal we ate at the Marriott) and then we got to listen to one of the most enjoyable presentations I have ever been to. We felt very lucky to be in such a intimate setting. He had spoken earlier that day at the dental convention in town. There were 18,000 people at that one. We only had about 750 people at ours.

There were two big arm chairs on the stage and the CEO of Energi sat in on and Pres. Bush in the other. We lucked out to be sitting slightly to the right of center and so were looking right at the president. Brian asked him some questions, and Pres. Bush told amazing stories and shared very candid thoughts and beliefs. He had stories about Putin, September 11, and other presidential stuff but also shared great stories about interactions with his family and particularly his Dad. It was wonderful. Steve and I both agreed that it was twice as good as we had anticipated it being. When they stood for him to leave, we couldn't believe it had been an hour. We didn't want it to end.    

We even got our own copy of Pres. Bush's book 

That evening was the awards dinner.  Yes, a second fabulous meal in the same ballroom as lunch.  As they did the presentations, I tried to take a photo of the slide that went up when Steve's name was called, but it turned out a little blurry.  Congrats on managing risk so well, hun!!

After the dinner there was, of course, a social hour.  Steve and I never stayed long at these as most of the attendees are drinking lots of alcohol.  But when we went in the room they had all these cut outs of former presidents.  We decided it would be fun to take our photo with them.  I didn't post them all, but here is a sampling.  Unfortunately with the flash, you can see the big fold in the cardboard, but they were amazingly realistic.  Kinda fun.

Steve with GW

Me, with Honest Abe

Schmoozing with JFK

I like Ike!!

Overall, we had an amazing time in San Antonio.  I had never been to Texas except to land on a plane, so I am glad I finally got there.  We learned a lot, ate too much, and got pampered for a few days.  Next year's conference is in Washington DC.  I hope our schedule allows us to go to that one, too.  Loved it!!  Thanks, Energi!!!

When we decided to go to San Antonio for the conference, we realized that we could tie in trip to Mississippi to see Geoffrey. We were looking forward to seeing Geoffrey's home and Mississippi in general.  It's a place we had never been before.  My Dad actually spent some of his mission in Mississippi (and Texas, as well).

We got up on Friday morning, had one final amazing breakfast at the Marriott and then headed north to Austin for our afternoon flight.  We had about an hour cushion so we stopped at a little historic town called Gruene.  It's pronounced "green" but spelled in the German way.  It was just a little tiny town with shops and a general store, but we found some fun treats to buy.  Glad we stopped.   We got in late on Friday night and the next morning Geoffrey made us.....

Mancakes for Breakfast!!!  So good!!

After breakfast we headed out to find a few decorative items for Geoffrey's apartment.  I never took pictures of our great finds, but suffice it to say we got some cool stuff!!  Then Geoffrey took us to a buffet called Mama Hamils in Madison, MS.  Oh my....did we eat good food there!!!  And way too much of it (are you seeing a theme here).  We were literally sick when we left there.  He then took us around to see some sights.  

A statue honoring the women who dedicated their lives during the Civil War, caring for the wounded, etc.  It was beautiful.

Behind the statue was the Mississippi Capital.  

It was not open, but we got some good photos outside.

After looking around downtown, and visiting the Medgar Evers home, Geoffrey took us to the Barnett Reservoir along the Natchez Trace Parkway near his home.  

Just a gorgeous lake

There we are  :)

He also took us to this swamp a little farther up the trace.  We were hoping to see gators, but only saw a really big frog, a squirrel, and a beetle.  Oh well, it was still fun to see the trees growing out of the water.

It was a pretty cool place.

Saturday night Geoff took us to another one of his favorite eating establishments, Cock of the Walk.

You know, we hadn't eaten quite enough at lunch so it was very important to get more food.  :)

But seriously, it was a great place.  Fried catfish or chicken was the choice and then you got everything you could ever imagine to go with it...collard greens, hush puppies, fries, coleslaw, etc.  

It was, in a word, delicious!!!  

We went home and watched the Mississippi State football game.  It is a good time for Mississippi football fans right now.  Both Miss. State and Ole Miss are tops in the polls.  Everywhere we went we saw people sporting their team wear.  They both won that day which put Mississippi State at number one and, I think, Ole Miss at number three in the country.  Pretty exciting time to be down there!

The next day was Sunday and Geoffrey's Stake Conference.  We realized that we probably should have gone to the Saturday night session the night before, but never even thought about it.  Geoff had the assignment to sing with a group of Single Adults at the conference.  Despite his fear that they would sound terrible, they did a great job.  Geoffrey's good friend, Mara, also sang with them.  She is a recent convert to the church in his ward and had gone to Mama Hamils with us the day before.

After church we headed to see the Vicksburg Battlefield National Park.  We checked out the town of Vicksburg first and even drove across the Mississippi so that we could say we had been in Louisiana. see photo below)  When we got to the park, we saw the film in the Visitor's Center and then drove through the park loop.  There were definitely similarities to Gettysburg.  Lots of memorials from different states and statues of leaders.  The trenches, and even a tunnel are still visible.  It's always very sobering to think of the sacrifices made at these battlegrounds.  We loved the beautiful green grassy areas and the trees and foliage, too.

Proof that we entered Louisiana

No, that is not the Washington Monument but rather the Navy Monument honoring the naval officers and sailors who participated in the Vicksburg campaign.

About halfway through the driving loop, they have a big display of The Cairo.  Though it is spelled like the city in Egypt, it is pronounced  kay-ro.  The Cairo was one of seven iron clad gun boats used by the Union troops in the Battle of Vicksburg.  She actually sank when she hit a mine in the Yazoo  River, north of Vicksburg.  All of the men escaped safely but her smoke stacks were knocked down so as not to call attention to her whereabouts from Confederate troops.  She remained sunk until the mid 1900s when she was finally raised in three pieces.  Because most of the ship had been submerged in mud for all those years, many of the artifacts were still intact when they raised her up.  We were able to see many of the pieces of history recovered from the ship displayed in the museum there.  They have reconstructed some of the boat, but there were also large sections of it that were original lumber and metal.  You could see the place where the mine had blown the big hole in her side.   Pretty amazing to see.

Geoffrey and Mara in front of The Cairo

Front view of this amazing old vessel

After Vicksburg we came back to Geoffrey's place and enjoyed our crock pot meal of pork and sauerkraut.  It turned out great even though it had been in there for about 10 hours.

The next day we ran some errands while Geoffrey worked from home and then headed to the airport mid afternoon.  Our trip home was kind of eventful.  The sky kept getting darker as the day went on and then the tornado warnings started.  We were supposed to leave around 3:00 but actually ended up leaving for Atlanta about 8:00 that night.  Unfortunately, we missed our flight in Atlanta but fortunately Delta put us up in a hotel for the night.  We had dinner at a Waffle House at about midnight.  We opted for this bit of nostalgia since we had done the same thing once before in Atlanta when we were on our way out to BYU with Janelle and Stephanie and got stuck there.  

The shuttle took us back to the airport in the morning and we were on our way home.  I'm so thankful for our boys and Grandma Foulk who made it possible for us to go.  Thanks to Geoffrey, also, for taking such good care of us in Mississippi.