KOA, San Antonio, Texas

There are some places that you just find to be so pleasant that you don’t want to come up with reasons to leave. San Antonio was one of those places. We initially made reservations at the KOA for two nights here and extended our stay twice (for a total of six days). The campground is on a bus route that goes downtown to the Alamo, River Walk, restaurants, etc. We had two rides on the Salado Creek Greenway (South section) that runs beside the campground that connects several parks. Groceries and a Walmart are close runs.

The campground is reasonably quiet for being so close to downtown. Our section was under a large grove of pecan trees. Very nice staff and very clean campground. Hot showers. Almost 100 OTA TV channels, strong Verizon 4G and useable Wi-Fi.

We did venture out on another bike ride to some of the other missions by starting at Mission San Jose Visitors Center run by the National Park Service. From there, you can go north and south on the River Walk extension to the other missions.

We chose two other missions instead of one and crossed the San Antonio River at Padre Park and  headed south for Mission San Juan Capistrano. The River Walk on the west side is in better shape (paved).

We crossed back over the river after Mission San Juan and rode on to Mission San Francisco de la Espada, the smallest but perhaps the most ornate of the missions.

The ride back to the visitors center on the west side was quite pleasant but we were running out of gas and although the temperature was nice we had a bit of wind. We didn’t get to Mission Concepcion. If we stop in San Antonio on the way back, we’ll do that on another ride.

Even though the missions were all founded in the 1700s, they are still active churches today. That was a fact that amazed us at each stop.

Next on our agenda was the San Antonio Botanical Garden. We were slightly confused that the conservatory contained a number of species of palms and other plants and just around the corner, we found the same plants outside. I’m sure there’s a reason but we didn’t find one there. There is one hill on the property with an observation tower which afforded a nice view of the San Antonio skyline. Not a perfect shot but it also includes the conservatory at the Botanical Garden.