San Antonio and AFRH Gulfport

Some pretty and important things to see in the last 8 days!  After leaving El Paso, I made my way to San Antonio, Houston, and Gulfport MS.  I'm parked in an RV park a half hour east of New Orleans and an hour west of Gulfport for 10 days.  Haven't made the Big Easy yet.  That will start tonight.  Let me begin with San Antonio. Everyone knows about the Riverwalk and the Alamo, but I'll add a small synopsis.

The River Walk is much more than I imagined! The foresight and financial investment it took to create this picturesque promenade, fully integrated into the fabric of downtown San Antonio is amazing. It started largely as flood control in the 1920's but burgeoned into the current concept around 1936 with groundbreaking in 1939. Wish my photos were a little better!

The Riverwalk

The Alamo

The Alamo is located a city block from the Riverwalk. On March 6, 1836 the Alamo fell to Mexico's Santa Anna. It framed the battle call for Santa Anna's defeat at the hands of Sam Houston shortly thereafter, with the Republic of Texas established in 1836 and annexation into the Union in 1845.

A plethora of horse drawn carriages in downtown San Antonio. I took the bus in and Uber'd back.

Went downtown on Saturday night to principally see dueling pianos at Howl At The Moon piano bar.

In atonement, I made Mass at Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo Sunday morning.  Restored in the 1930's, it is the largest mission, known as 'Queen of the Missions'. 

 

Leaving San Antonio for the outskirts of Houston, my trailer tire blew out.  Fortunately, I was close to an exit for the tire change.  I found a ranshackeled tire shop within a few miles to replace the blown tire and the opposite tire that sported a huge bubble.  But it took all of the next day to get a replacement rim and everything back to roadworthy status. The trailer handled surprisingly well when the tire blew.

The road system in Houston is daunting.

 

 

Other than tire repair, I didn't do much in Houston.  Headed out for Slidell, Louisiana east of New Orleans. Below is the 5 mile bridge across Lake Pontchartrain.

My RV Park in Slidell

I picked Slidell because it was close to both NO and Gulfport, LS.  SFCS, along with the A/E firm URS was the Architect for the Armed Forces Retirement Community in Gulfport.  It is a 5 acre, $250 million building on a 50 acre campus completed in 2010 for 500 veterans.  Hurricane Katrina wiped out the original tower and all of the buildings on the campus.  We were working on an addition to the existing building before the hurricane.  While we did so, we stayed at the adjacent Grand Hotel, connected by skybridge to the floating Grand Casino on the Gulf.  Katrina lifted the Grand Casino and floated it 200 yards down Gulf Shore Boulevard until it butted into a motel.

AFRH Gulfport

Sun angle and ineptitude forced this pic quality. Sorry.

                                     

I was fortunate to have a wonderful tour guide to walk through the building. Becki was with the Owner's Rep Jacobs Engineering during the project and now works at AFRH. She knows everyone who lives and works there and exemplifies those who provide the incredible love, care and attention for our Veterans.

Photos of Veterans who have recently passed away, located in the Hall of Honor above.

Rotunda at the main entry.  There are three towers built over two broad connecting levels, the lowest for parking and the one above for community services, dining, admin, clinic, etc.

An indoor Bocce court, and an ancient architect/veteran.

A Marine resident's immaculately kept apartment.

One of the bricks from the original building.

A replacement bridge from the Campus to the Gulf.

The artistry of many of the residents was in evidence throughout the building.  Woodworker P.J., known as the Sawdust Man, makes Toys for Tots and many other wood models. This link chain was made without any breaks from one piece of wood.

 This Ham Radio operator still monitors weather in his equipment room, radio connected globally to emergency services.

I was fortunate to work on this project and to be part of SFCS Inc's ongoing commitment to high quality Senior Care design.

That will be about it for now.  Please stay tuned for the next post, likely to be sooner than my average delay. Thank you for checking it out.  It's been a blast so far, with more to come!

DDP