San Antonio Missions National Historical Park: Mission San Jose

Date of Visit: May 27, 2012

Mission San Jose was the mission we spent the most time at while visiting the different missions that are part of the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.  While we were not able to go inside the actual church part of the mission due to an event going on, unlike Mission San Juan there still was plenty to walk around and see.


The paths around the Mission are paved and there are ramps for getting down in the area near the back of the church.  It was not exactly enjoyable to walk/roll around and visit, as it was a typical hot summer day.  However, it was still interesting to be able to see how it really was a community and military fortress, since this is the most preserved/restored of the missions.  One area you could go in interested Mik the post, as you could see out the holes for guns.

Destination Info:
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park - Mission San Jose
150 Woodhill
San Antonio, TX 78214

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park: Mission San Juan

Date of Visit: May 27, 2012

Mission San Juan was the second mission we visited during our time exploring the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.  We did not spend much time at this mission, as it was under renovation, so you cannot go inside it and there is not much to see around the rest of the grounds of the mission.  The path around it is paved, though, so it is easy to explore - just not much to see at least until the mission is reopened.

Destination Info:
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park - Mission San Juan
9101 Graf Road
San Antonio, Texas 78214

Disney's California Adventure: Carthay Circle

Date of Visit: June 23, 2012

We celebrated Mik's 18th birthday at the new Carthay Circle restaurant on Buena Vista Street in Disney's California Adventure.  We all really enjoyed it, but it is an expensive place.  It was worth the splurge, though, and the $220 for 2 appetizers, 4 entrees, 4 drinks, 4 desserts, and tip  actually seemed like a bargain after spending almost $100 to eat just a regular entree breakfast at the IHOP across the street the day before.

When dining at the Carthay Circle restaurant, you check in on the first floor in the corner of the lounge.  The waiter comes and gets you from the lounge area and takes you upstairs (via elevator for us) to your table.  What is really nice is that they already know there is a wheelchair and they had a chair removed and totally out of the way before we got up there.

For the appetizer, we got the house biscuits.  Mik really loved them, as he is always a bread and biscuit type person and he really like the bacon in it.  The other appetizer we got was the grilled grape leaves stuffed with chenel goat cheese.  These were okay, but I have had way better at the local street fair not to mention actually in Europe.

For the entree Mik went with the Kobe beef cheek sliders and he enjoyed them a lot.  He also tried Mom's bacon wrapped shrimp, but was not much into them.  I had the Udon Noodle Bowl, which ended up being way more hot spicy rather than the flavorful spicy I expected.

Dessert was the best part at least for me.  I enjoyed the Fried Banana Split Monte Cristo Sundae.  It was a fried banana with three little scoops of ice cream and a banana chip shaped like a banana.  I forget what Mik's dessert was called and cannot find it on any of the online menus, but it was something like chocolate chip ice cream with a brownie.  The brownie came on the side, but the picture is of how Mik set up his dessert before digging in.  Looks much cooler the way he did it!

Destination Info:
Disney's California Adventure 
1313 South Harbor Boulevard
Anaheim, CA 92802

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park: Espada Aqueduct

Date of Visit: May 27, 2012

The Espada Aqueduct was our second stop on our visit to the San Antonio Missions.  This was a quick stop, but totally worth it.  It is just cool to see the aqueduct that was used in Spanish colonial times and continued to be used until modern times.  I have read it is still functioning, but it certainly does not appear to be in use with it being totally dry on our visit.  However, that could be related to the whole San Antonio River revival project going on that we noticed a lot of signs for as we drove between the missions.


Destination Info:
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park - Espada Aqueduct
San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park: Mission Espada

Date of Visit: May 27, 2012

We started our visit to the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park at Mission Espada. We started our visit at the visitor center to get the National Park stamp.  Entering the visitor center was a little awkward with dad having to hold both the doors open in order for it to be wide enough to push Mik in.  There is a small exhibit in the visitor center.


After the visitor center we walked around to the church, which also had the same style of doors as the visitor center.  The doors to the church were a little more tricky, though, as only one was unlatched to open.  However, Dad figured out how to unlatch it in order to open both for Mik to get inside.

Destination Info:

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park - Mission Espada
10040 Espada Road
San Antonio, Texas 78214

Chamizal National Memorial

Date of Visit: May 25, 2012

It seemed like we were not going to get to Chamizal before the visitor center closed at 5 p.m., so Mik thought we had definitely decided to keep it on the original return part of the trip.  However, it was just not a big deal if we did miss it on the way to Florida, since it was already in the return plan.  Anyways, we got there about 4:30 p.m. and while he was annoyed we still stopped, at least did come around and get out for a picture by the Historic Boundary Monument.

Dad and I went into the visitor center to get the National Park stamps for the memorial and the trail it is part of.  Inside the visitor center there is a small museum, which gives a good background of the border dispute of the area and the final treaty in the 1960s.  We kind of just quickly browsed it, since we were there so close to closing, but we did not really miss much of it, as it is pretty small and even the text is not as much as it seems because everything is in English and Spanish.


After the museum, we were going to walk to the boundary monument before leaving and gave Mik a last chance to get out and see something.  The trail to the monument from the parking lot is a nice wide dirt path.  It was fine on the day we were there and probably almost all year round, but it seemed that if wet from rain or other water it could easily be quite a muddy trail.

Destination Info:
Chamizal National Memorial
800 S. San Marcial
El Paso, Texas 79905

New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum

Date of Visit: May 25, 2012

This first stop on our trip was unplanned.  After we left Tucson early, I decided to look at what places had National Park stamps and were pretty much on our route.  The New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum ended up being just a few miles out of the way and it has El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail stamp.


It ended up being a pretty interesting museum to visit, although we did not take the time to see it all.  Of what we saw, the New Mexico Centennial exhibit was the most interesting.  Mik and I had fun doing the scavenger hunt in that exhibit and then we used the 10% off from doing it to get some yummy New Mexico grown pistachios in the gift shop.

We looked at the Heritage Gallery a little and the John Deere exhibit.  We certainly could have spent more time there, especially since we did not even venture outside to see the animal exhibits.  However, we still wanted to get the Chamizal National Monument even though it technically was on the plan for the way home.

Destination Info:
New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
4100 Dripping Springs Road
Las Cruces, New Mexico 88011