Day 6 and 7

Busy, busy, busy - finally get a chance to sit down and write.  I spent the morning of day 6 in San Antonio.  They have some incredible mission churches there that date to the early 1700s.  All four are located in a line in the southern half of the city.  They are managed by the National Parks, but are also still function parishes.  They do a great job of explaining the role of missions to early settlers.  I encourage anyone traveling through the area to check them out - maybe instead of the Alamo - it was boring.  I even talked the park ranger in to letting me take pictures inside one of the missions even though it was not open.

San Francisco de la Espada

San Juan Capistrano

San Juan y San Miguel

Mission Concepcion

I noticed a church on my way to the cathedral so I stopped and took photos

St. Gerard

Then to the Cathedral in downtown San Antonio

San Fernando Cathedral

San Antonio also has an impressive Basilica.

Basilica Of The National Shrine Of The Little Flower

I took the advice of my loyal blog followers and wandered out to the little town of Freericksburg, Texas in search of a "painted church".  Fredericksburg is an odd little town out in the hill country of central Texas.  They have the Museum of the Pacific there - I looked around, but never did find the Pacific in central Texas.  Someone told me that Admiral Nimitz was from the area, thus the museum - of course they may have just been messing with a tourist.  The church was very impressive for a small town.  It reminded me of the churches in Mercer county or in southern Indiana.  Those Germans make nice churches.

St. Mary

Then up to Austin to the Cathedral

I spent the night in Austin with some friends and took in some of the downtown scene.  Live music everywhere, good food, and swarms of people.  Mardi Gras tends to bring some odd folks out into the streets.  Good times - I recommend Austin

Day 7 - Up to Fort Worth and the land of horrible traffic and the very worst type of people - Cowboy Fans.  The sacrifices that I make to get the pictures.

St. Patrick Cathedral

Dallas Cathedral was closed which is ok because there was no parking anywhere.  So on over to Tyler, Texas.

Cathedral Of The Immaculate Conception

Then back over to Louisiana to cover the northern part of the state - Shreveport, Natchitoches, and Alexandria

Cathedral Of St. John Berchmans

Basilica Of The Immaculate Conception

Cathedral Of St. Francis Xavier

I am now somewhere in northern Louisiana - to be honest I am really not sure - somewhere in the woods - kinda like the woods that you always see in horror films.  I am off to Little Rock tomorrow - hopefully.  I am now at 3079 miles, 6 states, assorted animals (saw a dead armadillo today), 31 churches of various types.  I am also going on about 5 hours of sleep per night so I am going to bed.