Day 4-The State of Texas

We left Gilmer, TX Sunday morning in route to Austin. We visited the Jack Blanton Museum of Art on the Texas University campus. They had a variety of work in their collection including large scale Italian sculpture reproductions so that the University students could learn about Art History, a local collection of donated work, and best of all, a hugh collection of contemporary pieces that we enjoyed.

Next we drove over to Battle Hall, which also on the Texas campus, and the list of Top 100 Architectural buildings in the country. The scale was massive and beautiful.

After that we drove over to the Texas State Capital, and then also by the Driskill Hotel, both of which are also on the Top 100 list.

Our next stop across Texas was San Antonio where we barely made it to the Marian Koogler McNay Art Museum. That was an incredible experience and every piece inside was amazing. It's a definite "don't miss" if you are heading to the area. The building was combined of two parts. One was an Italian ornate villa that was the private residence of the McNay family, and the modern couple of wings that were added on after the building became a museum open to the public. The property had not only an amazing house with work displayed in a gallery setting, but also an incredible private courtyard, and beautiful Japanese gardens. The most incredible thing was being able to see Kim's favorite artists, and take photos of their work!

A Picasso painting:

A photo of the private courtyard:

The Alamo was our next adventure (unfortunately we couldn't find parking in the Alamo Plaza, so, Andrew had to drive the car around while Kim ran up and took before photos before they closed).

In his pouring over the reviews on trip advisor, Andrew found an amazing couple of sites in San Antonio. We felt so fortunate that we had the opportunity to see them because they were both "off the beaten path." The first stop was an amazing Japanese Tea Garden that we wondered on all the paths of. It was the most scenic site and such a surprise.

Our next experience was driving through a local San Antonio historic neighborhood community. We saw some beautiful Victorian architecture and felt like we were back in the Garden District of New Orleans. We did a number of other San Antonio tourist destinations, then the other highlight of our trip to the area was the San Jose Mission. It was an unfinished site of a Christian Mission Community that felt like we were in Europe 300 years ago.

We ended the night in the Riverwalk district and enjoyed meandering along the Riverwalk Canal and ending the night on a Riverboat Cruise tour.

Due to the schedule of interviews for Kim's school project, we left San Antonio at 11pm and drove through the night to Santa Fe, NM...Check Day 5 for details...