views from our hotel room

Now that we are home from our trip, I'm slowly finishing up the sketches done in San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, Texas. This sketch above shows some of what we could see from our room's terrace. I debated a few days over whether to add full color or not --- the San Fernando Cathedral was so lovely to look at, I decided to leave the rest in ink only. At night this cathedral is beautifully lit up.

(BTW, the remains of the fighters at the Alamo are purported to be buried in this church. Also, Santa Ana raised the "no quarter" flag from one of these towers before the battle.)

We explored two missions in the area (besides the Alamo). This first one, Mission San Jose, was nearly fully restored in the 1930's, making it easy to envision life there in the 18th century. The Spanish converted virtually all the hunter-gatherer tribes of Native Americans in the Texas area to Christianity --- these missions were their communities, fields, herds, and protection from the warring tribes. But they used to drive the priests "nuts" because they slept on these hard stone floors instead of on the beds provided!