The Travels of Eric and Lorna

Well, I managed to save some of the photos off my bad card using eImage Recovery , so here are a few random ones from the trip.

So me and my buddy Tuco headed down to the Ozarks for a weekend camping trip. We stayed in the Ozark Scenic River on Jack's Fork, and we found a gem of a truck camping site. I'm not gonna tell you which one it is, but you can easily figure it out (or ask me) if you want to. Sneaking out of work a little early, we headed down. Taking Tuco's truck, it rained on us almost all the way down. No worries, though, the forecast was calling for a clear weekend, so I remained hopeful on the drive down. We got to the camping area. There is a main campground, at which there were some trucks, horse trailers, and RVs/campers. We kept going and forded the creek to get to the isolated camp spots. We were fortunate enough to get Camp 9, and it was a fine camp site. We were rewarded with this view when we woke up. We had decided to just explore the general area that day, and, after a hearty breakfast of bacon and egg sandwiches, we decided to start exploring. Bee Bluff was very near, ...

Today L went shopping without me. I lazed around in the morning, and for lunch I headed down to the Buckhorn Tavern. This place was very close to our apartment, and bills itself as the oldest saloon in Texas. The name comes from the legend that the original owner would trade either a shot of whiskey or a beer for deer antlers. As you can tell, the strategy worked, as the walls are covered with stuffed animals of all kinds. The marble and wood bar is original, and very cool. This place had good food and beer at good prices. I recommend it, for the ambience if nothing else. Of course, if you are a staunch ASPCA member, you might want to avoid it. After lunch, we decided to go check out the Tower of the Americas . This is a large, 750 foot observation tower built for the 1968 World's Fair . In addition to the amazing view from the top, you also get to view a "4-D" film showing highlights of Texas. it was pretty fun, the seats moved, it blew wind and water in your ...

Today we got up relatively early and walked down to The Alamo . We were smart to get there early, because there were very few people there. What I didn't know is that what people usually call The Alamo, pictured above, was really just the church for the large mission that was around it. Much of that original property is now under modern San Antonio, but some of the more significant buildings are still extant, such as the church and the long barracks. Even though a lot of the mission is now destroyed, the site consists of beautiful grounds and several buildings some of which contain very interesting displays on the history of the site. The grounds. This is currently a research library. This is the long barracks. This is one of the original buildings, and has some very interesting displays inside. Here is another view of the long barracks. This is a monument in Alamo Plaza, which would have originally been inside the compound. We also got to hear a really good lecture by one of t...

After a lazy morning, we headed down to A Taste of San Antonio, which was being held at Market Square, which is apparently a very old market. We decided that since there were so many street vendors we would eat on the street instead of at a formal restaurant. Wow, were we glad we did. The best thing we had was gorditas. They were all made right there, with one woman making the casings, grilling and then frying them, and the other woman filling them. We had chicken and bean and cheese, all with hot sauce and guacamole. They were really amazing. We had some other things too, good tamales and fajita tacos, but the gorditas were the standouts. Note the line at the gordita stand; there was always a line there, which is why we chose it. We also saw a really cool Tejada band, all the members of which wore classic Mexican wrestling masks. How awesome it that? We saw the wrestling masks for sale, and I still wonder if I should have bought one. What I did buy was a guayabera shirt that...

We are staying at the Wyndham resort in San Antonio. This is a nice place. The building was built in 192, and was originally a hotel. It has really cool concrete floors, and many exposed concrete beams in the room. Here are a couple of pictures of the room. The bedroom. The living room. After checking in and chilling for a bit, we decided it was time for some lunch. We headed down to the Riverwalk and strolled around for a while. The Riverwalk is really cool. Being Saturday afternoon, it was really crowded. There are many shops and restaurants along the Riverwalk, and it's larger than I thought, over 3 miles long, total according to the literature. My internet connection here is very poor, so I am having trouble posting more pictures. I'll post more when I get home. OK, I bought a better internet connection, so here are some more pictures. This is a very representative picture of the Riverwalk. It is basically lined with restaurants and bars, with a smattering of ...

Stay tuned for updates from San Antonio, Texas starting this weekend.

For a short weekend trip in celebration of our 15 th wedding anniversary, L and I decided to make a short weekend trip to Lincoln . Yes, Nebraska . We both too Friday off, and headed out that morning, taking our time, since it is only a little over three hours away by car. We arrived around lunchtime, and dined at a place called Buzzard Billy's , a Cajun place. My shrimp po -boy was very good, as was the locally brewed brown ale. We drove up early so we could go to the National Museum of Roller Skating , which is not open on the weekends. This museum was pretty small, and was kind of funny. There was some interesting stuff there, but I don't think I could recommend going to Lincoln just to see it. Some of the really old skates were fun to see, and some of the costumes from the 70s were a riot. The funniest thing was that the building had a bunch of people working in cubicles for the National Roller Skating Association. I saw at least 12 people working there. Is this o...

Today, after braving the annoying crowd at the free breakfast, we headed out. There was a little league baseball tournament in town, and our hotel was full of young (junior high age) baseball players and their families. The kids were, on the whole, well-behaved; it was the parents who were the annoying ones, really. Our destination was the farmer's market held in the Haymarket District just south of the University of Nebraska's main campus. The market was crowded and pretty cool. It was more like a craft market than a farmer's market, really, but I bet this changes as it gets later in the year. The guy at Bad Robot (great store, check it out) said that the market would expand onto another street the next weekend. The booths here were the usual kind of thing, with a couple of exceptions. First, the longest line I saw there was for a woman selling egg rolls. The line was long enough when we first got there that we didn't want to stand in it. I did later when ...