It was an overcast start to the morning, with folks starting to come in to the park to walk their dogs as we got up and started to get ready. There was even a slight cool breeze in the air.
Junk and Objects
Not far from us was the Castle of Junk, the home of Vince Hannemann, who began collecting junk and constructing it into various sculptures of sorts, including one in the shape of a cathedral in his backyard, which we could see the top of from the street. We couldn't miss the house, as even at the front gate there were all sorts of items, such as a collection of hubcaps and other parts shaped into a Transformers-like character, and a wooden bench under a roof that said "Hello peeps" and "Fresh junk coming thanks for your support." It's a paid guided tour that requires booking ahead to see everything on the property.
In keeping up with the quirky items theme, we next visited the Uncommon Objects store, a huge, quirky antique store that sells an eclectic selection of finds. It's like a museum! Each section is curated by someone, and items are also color coded in areas. Here we found everything from a President Ford campaign button, West African masks, skeleton keys, vintage cameras, old maps of what the world looked like in the mid-1800s, a huge ball made out of buttons, bust statues of all the band members from Kiss, taxidermy animals, and thousands of other items. We didn't buy anything, but we really appreciated the amount of work that went into finding all of these items, and how some of these pieces can be conversational starters if they were in someone's home!
Big Pecan, Stag, and Cowboy Boots
Driving out of Austin on the highway, it started to rain heavily, providing some relief to the hot weather. While Minnesota definitely had a high concentration of giant statues, Texas was not to be outdone, and lived up to its reputation that "everything is bigger in Texas!" We checked out the World's Largest Pecan structure in the town of Seguin, outside the Texas Agricultural Education & Heritage Center. It's currently the largest pecan structure, but we later learned is one of THREE largest pecan monuments in Texas. Texas' state tree is the pecan tree and they produce the most pecans in the US. There was a pecan tree that had scattered a bunch of pecans on the ground, but when we opened them they were clearly old. The statue was hilarious as there is also perhaps no way to make a pecan monument look attractive--it looked like a big brown lump!
The Giant Stag of Converse reminded us of the giant roadrunner sculpture we'd seen on the way to Las Cruces in New Mexico, as they're both of animals and made from similar bits of junk materials, including engine parts, rusted fenders, electronic items, and other random items. From far away it towers in the the middle of a residential area at over 12 meters (40 feet) tall, and it's upon looking at it up close that we could see tall the different things that have been meshed together to make the stag come to life.
Also in the town of Converse was a curious attraction we'd found on Google Maps with two 5-star reviews, for THE NEW MOTHERSHIP LANDMARK (yes, it's in all caps). Apparently it's a a replica of the mothership that was used as a prop by Parliament-Funkadelic (P-Funk, a music collective) during their live concerts. In one of the videos on the Google review, it was lit up at night, with a smoke machine as well! The replica is located behind the parking lot at the Best Western Plus San Antonio East Inn & Suites, but it was behind a fence so we couldn't get close to it. A man who worked at the Best Western did mention that there'll be a party in August, so unfortunately we'll be missing what'll probably be more lights and smoke machines to celebrate around the Mothership!
San Antonio has the World's Largest Cowboy Boots, yet another giant roadside attraction we found on this trip! Completed in 1979, the fake ostrich-and-calf-skin cowboy boots are made of mostly junk materials and measure 10.6 meters (35 feet) tall by 10 meters (33 feet) long. They're set amid a shopping mall, and since we couldn't park in the covered parking garage, we stopped at one of the lots outside, and walked around the corner to see it, timing our photos so that there wouldn't be any cars driving to get in and out of the mall in our picture (although the drivers were mostly very gracious, waiting for us to get some pics before passing through)!
Laundry Day
We needed to do a couple of loads of laundry so found a laundromat in San Antonio. We needed to recharge our solar panels after they ran out of juice overnight, so we parked the RV in the hot sun while we waited for our washing to be finished. While the sun had come out in full force after the overcast morning and rain earlier in the day, it meant that our RV was now a steaming hot sauna in the afternoon! There was no hesitation: We had to check into an RV park to plug in and get some cool air and a good night's sleep tonight.
Surrending to an RV Park
We chose the Alamo River RV Park & Campground in San Antonio for its positive reviews, decent price, and because it had a pool! We arrived after office hours but there was still someone there to let us in and show us to our spot, which was shaded by trees, and gave us a bit of privacy as we didn't have any immediate neighbors next to us. It was down a ramp heading towards the Alamo River, so right near us we saw several deer, including a couple of fawns!
With an hour left before the pool closed, we rode our eBikes back up the hill to get there. Despite the heat, there was nobody at the pool, so we got to enjoy it all to ourselves. By the time we got out, the sun was starting to set and we felt much cooler already. It was such a relief to plug in, turn on the air conditioning, and have a comfortable nights' sleep!
Route Map
