The Wandering Disciple

The largest of the missions near San Antonio, Mission San Jose is known as the Queen of the Missions.  Founded in 1720, the mission served to provide both a physical home and a spiritual home for Coahuiltecan Natives as well as refugees from the closed east Texan missions.   The mission served hundreds until it was closed in 1824.   It would be restored a hundred years later as part of a Works Progress Administration project and today serves not only a reminder to the past but also an active Catholic parish. Mission San Jose is one of five missions that comprise the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.  The missions stretched along the San Antonio River were like little towns in the Texas plains.  Today you can tour each of the missions and four of the five are still active church parishes.  The only mission that does not function as a church is Mission San Antonio de Valero, commonly known as The Alamo. Taken: March 16, 2024 at Mission ...

San Antonio Texas:  We got up at zero dark thirty to kick off our Spring Break vacation to Texas.  For this week long vacation we will be departing Tampa International Airport and visiting San Antonio and Austin.  This trip marks our first trip to Texas as well as our farthest west adventure so far. Our trip got started early with a trip north to Tampa and our 6:30 flight on Southwest Airlines.  We were flying on Southwest Flight 1226 non-stop to Austin.  We got to the airport early and breezed through TSA screening.  While we waited for our flight to board, we ate breakfast at Burger 21 on Airside C. We boarded our 5-year old Boeing 737-800 for our on-time departure west to Texas.  The early morning pre-dawn flight had the sunrise chasing us across the Gulf of Mexico.  The flight to Austin was smooth until we reach east Texas and strong cold front.  The turbulence was fun and despite almost zero visibility we landed safely at Austin-Bergstr...